"It is clear that the restriction put upon the liberty of trade by forbidding private letter-carrying establishments is a breach of State duty. It is also clear that were that restriction abolished, a natural postal system would eventually grow up, could it surpass in efficiency our existing one. And it is further clear that if it could not surpass it, the existing system might rightly continue; for the fulfilment of postal functions by the State is not intrinsically at variance with the fulfilment of its essential function."—Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, London, 1910, p. 120.
Professor Cannan sums the matter up from the point of view of modern opportunism:—
"Much too great importance is commonly attributed to this part of State action: the sale of commodities. We may be sure that if the State had not happened to undertake the business of carrying letters, some private organization would have been established for the purpose. Whether it would have done the work better or worse than the present State Post Office does it, is a question which we have no means of answering. So, too, on the other hand, if the State in this country had undertaken the provision of railways, we should have had a railway system of some sort; it might have been a better or it might have been a worse system; whether it would have been better or worse would have depended on the wisdom of those who had the largest share in devising and extending it, and who these persons would have been, and what their wisdom would have been, we have no means of telling."—Edwin Cannan, Elementary Political Economy, London, 1903, p. 132.
[661] "Before the rise of the economic schools that opposed industrial action on the part of the State, the method of public postal service was firmly established, and was seen to give, on the whole, sufficiently satisfactory results. It, therefore, escaped the hostile criticism that economists freely bestowed on the less efficient public departments."—C. F. Bastable, Public Finance, London, 1903, p. 208.
[662] "He was always eager to improve the mail service to remote towns; and would observe that one good result of State management was the consideration of out-of-the-way places. A private management, he said, might probably have introduced a halfpenny post in London, and have left the country worse served than at present."—Leslie Stephen, Life of Henry Fawcett, London, 1885, p. 438.
[663] "The Post Office is properly a mercantile project. The Government advances the expense of establishing the different offices and buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid with a large profit by the duties upon what is carried. It is perhaps the only mercantile project which has been successfully managed by, I believe, every sort of Government. The capital to be advanced is not very considerable. There is no mystery in the business. The returns are not only certain but immediate."—Wealth of Nations, ed. 1904, vol. ii., p. 303.
[665] In the United Kingdom the expense incurred in providing specially for the disposal of parcels in this way often exceeds the total amount of the postage paid on the parcels.
[666] In the United Kingdom, horse-posts or cycle-posts are in general provided in view of the length of the route to be traversed, rather than in view of the weight of traffic to be carried.
[667] The need for such a separation between ordinary letters and packets of appreciable weight is felt even in regard to the letter post itself. In England, the extension of the weight limit for penny letters, and the reduction of the rates for the heavier letters, has led to serious practical difficulties and has impeded smooth and rapid working. In the larger offices the letter post traffic is dealt with in two divisions: (1) the lighter, homogeneous traffic, the light letters and postcards; and (2) the heavier packets, and packets of irregular shape (p. [285]). In France, the extension of the maximum limit of weight gave rise to similar difficulties; so much so that the question of establishing a separate slower post for such packets has been seriously considered. In Paris, at the present time, there is a completely separate indoor and outdoor staff for the newspapers and packets.