[639] It appeared in the English letter rate of 1885, but disappeared with the changes of 1897. It has been reintroduced into the letter rate with the war changes of November 1915, and the result is an awkward scale.
[640] This point is dealt with more fully in connection with the parcel rate.
The whole question of subsidiary rates is dismissed by Bastable with the following:—
"One of the principal distinctions now turns on the character of the articles transmitted. Circulars and postcards would not bear the same charge as ordinary letters. The transmission of newspapers gives a yet smaller fund of utility on which to levy a tax, and is affected by the competition of carrying agencies. The result is seen in the lower halfpenny rate."—C. F. Bastable, Public Finance, London, 1903, p. 208.
[641] In England two-fifths of the total number of postal packets pass at a halfpenny.
[642] The concession of specially low rates for these classes of packets has given rise to a noteworthy general line of division between postal packets. All packets passing at privileged rates must obviously be subject to examination and check by the Post Office in order to ensure that the privilege is not abused, a necessity which leads immediately to the principle of the "open" post, as contrasted with the "closed" post, the ordinary sealed letter packet. The difference in charge is not, however, based on the consideration that the packets are open to inspection. The effect is in the reverse direction. The view of practical officers is that, other things being equal, the treatment of a packet sent by the Open Post is more expensive to the Post Office than its treatment if sent by Letter Post.
The requirement is imposed in order that compliance with other conditions may be ensured. In none of the five countries are ordinary letters allowed to pass at postcard rate if merely enclosed in open covers. But a printed circular letter, if sent in a sealed cover, would lose its claim to the privileged rate.
[643] "Fixing a railway rate is, in one word, an art—not a science, and it is an art which, in Bagehot's phrase, must be exercised 'in a sort of twilight, ... in an atmosphere of probabilities and of doubt, where nothing is very clear, where there are some chances for many events, where there is much to be said for several courses, where, nevertheless, one course must be determinedly chosen and fixedly adhered to.'"—W. M. Acworth, Elements of Railway Economics, Oxford, 1905, p. 73.
"The problem of railway rates has not, like that of postal charges, passed beyond the domain of current discussion. This is in part due to the fact that railways are universally regarded as a source of profit, to companies when privately owned, to the State when public property; but it is in larger measure due to the fact that the social significance of railways is not yet clearly understood. The problem of railway rates is a problem by itself, and stands as one of the most important of the unsettled problems of the day."—H. C. Adams, Science of Finance, New York, 1909, p. 280.
[644] "The cost of the service of transport for any given commodity cannot, under the varying conditions of railway operation, be even approximately calculated. The first insuperable difficulty is the division of the expenditure for any given work. Though railway economists have endeavoured, by means various and ingenious, to allocate the different items of railway expenditure, they have been unable to determine such a relatively simple matter as the division between passenger and goods traffic, and though estimates have been formulated, many of the charges have been allocated to one head or another by arbitrary decision, and not as a result of positive knowledge."—Railway News, London, 6th September 1913, p. 396.