A further reason justifying the conduct of the postal service by the Government rather than by private enterprise is that it is a necessity for the State to provide a means for the regular transmission of intelligence by letter of script throughout its territory. If the working of the service were left to private enterprise, it would be certainly confined to such routes as were found profitable, and those parts of the country in which profitable routes could not be established would be left unserved. The State alone can secure the establishment of a complete service, in which regard must not be confined to considerations of mere profit.[662] There are also minor features which render State management peculiarly applicable to the postal service. The actual operations are simple. As Adam Smith said: "There is no mystery in the business."[663] The
work is for the most part of a routine character, and calls for no special skill or knowledge. That is not to say that in the performance of the actual duties there is no room for the acquirement of considerable manipulative skill. It means that in principle the chief operations are simple, and may be reduced to routine processes. There is the further important consideration that the operations of the Post Office are intimately connected with the daily life of the people, and are constantly subject to public observation and criticism.
Assuming a State parcel service, there is to be considered the question whether that service should be attached to the letter post or whether it would be more economical to set up a separate service. It might appear at first sight that this question has been determined by the practice. But as the financial scheme of the letter post rests on the fact that the actual transportation of the letters occupies, as regards expense, a quite subsidiary place,[664] it is difficult to discover any special relation between the letter post and a business which is really part of the general transport industry. It may in some instances be advantageous to utilize for parcels the service provided for the transmission and delivery of letters. An organization reaching to all parts of the country is ready to hand, and one which, in rural districts especially, is often not employed to its full capacity. It may therefore in some cases manifestly be economical to give additional work to the service; but, at the same time, the provision of a service for parcels may in other cases add unduly to the cost of the general service—as, for example, when it becomes necessary to make special arrangements on account of occasional variations in the numbers of parcels.[665]
In any case, a postal service should be limited to parcels of moderate size and weight, because the Post Office, as at present organized, is for the most part adapted to the handling of packets which can be delivered by foot-messengers. In rural
districts this is almost universally the rule.[666] It is frequently necessary in the towns to separate entirely the parcel post traffic from the ordinary light letter post traffic (except in those parts of the service where the parcel post traffic is very restricted), to provide a separate staff, and to furnish different equipment.[667] In effect, two establishments are maintained. A separate parcel staff could, of course, collect and deliver traffic of any dimensions or character. But difficulties would arise in regard to the transportation from town to town of heavy parcels,[668] and in rural districts their distribution could not be undertaken without a reorganization of the general arrangements of the mail service. Any sort of regular house-to-house delivery would be enormously expensive. To a large extent—in the United Kingdom at any rate—such a service would be a duplication of services already provided by railway companies, and consequently economically wasteful.
The transportation of parcels is, indeed, in many aspects a service more appropriate to the railways than to the Post Office. The Post Office, for example, is handicapped as compared with the railways by the fact that, while the larger part of its traffic in parcels must under present conditions necessarily be conveyed by railway for some part of the journey, the actual points of despatch and receipt of the
parcels by the Post Office are not in the large majority of cases adjacent to the railway stations from or at which the traffic is despatched or received by railway.[669] It is, in consequence, necessary in such cases for the Post Office to provide a service between the respective railway stations and post offices.[670] If the railway companies provided adequate collection and delivery services there would be no need for division of the function with the Post Office. In many districts, however, the railway companies would find the provision of any sort of regular and universal service unremunerative, and this is probably the ultimate reason why the State has found it necessary to intervene. In the United States the introduction of a parcel post, and its extension to heavier parcels, was avowedly in a large degree due to the fact that in many parts of the country the railways, which are in private hands, did not provide any service for parcels. Where a service was provided by the railways, the rates and conditions were not satisfactory, and the establishment of a parcel post represents an attempt to prevent the full application of the principle of charging "what the traffic will bear."
The Post Office, moreover, as a public undertaking, cannot bargain freely for special facilities or terms with individuals or firms having large numbers of parcels for delivery within a limited area. Without such specialization the Post Office must often be unable to offer the most economical service, and private carrying agencies secure the business. In those countries where a parcel post is in operation, the Post Office does not rank as a transportation agency comparable with those of the commercial world. The traffic which it secures is private and personal rather than commercial, to a large degree exceptional traffic which the machinery of the ordinary commercial transportation agencies cannot, or at any rate in general does not, deal with—traffic for remote and isolated
residences, spasmodic in character, and, compared with the total traffic in parcels, small in amount.[671] The uniform rate favours such traffic, but the expense to the Post Office is disproportionate to the revenue. From the broader standpoint this is perhaps not altogether loss to the State, since by this means local industries are often brought in touch with markets which could not otherwise be reached, and the rural population is enabled to obtain from the towns many amenities not otherwise procurable.
Viewed in the light of these considerations, and especially of the fact that it is open to competition at all points where its rates would prove profitable, it will not appear extraordinary that the parcel post is less successful financially than the letter post.[672] The conditions under which postal business is conducted render it impossible to earmark the expenses properly chargeable to the parcel post, since expenses are for the most part incurred jointly. But the parcel post is to a large extent a secondary service engrafted on the letter post, and is perhaps not properly chargeable with a mathematical proportion of the total cost of the two services based on the relative cost of handling individual letters and individual parcels. Theoretical estimates of the cost of the parcel post must, therefore, be accepted with reserve. But a proved moderate loss on the parcel post would not be conclusive against the propriety of its maintenance. Postal rates are simple, definite, and generally known; and every post office is a receiving agency. It is convenient to use the post, which offers the further advantages of quick transmission, and the greater degree of security attaching to a State institution. The line on which a postal service for small parcels can best be justified is that by the utilization of existing machinery for the disposal of additional traffic, not so large as to overburden or disorganize the practical arrangements, a useful public advantage can be secured without inordinate cost. Nevertheless, the parcel post service is not a true postal service, but rather a commercial undertaking.[673] The question