[668] It is only necessary to glance into a van containing railway parcels in order to realize how impossible it would be to apply to such packages the usual postal method of enclosure in sacks; and conveyance à découvert by railway companies on behalf of the Post Office would give rise to obvious practical difficulties. In Germany and Switzerland postal parcels are so despatched, but the railways are State-owned in those countries, and the service is in many respects a railway service.
[669] The railways frequently establish receiving offices in various parts of a town. The services necessary for the conveyance of parcels from these offices to the railway stations are not, however, comparable with the services for closed parcel mails between the post offices and the stations, but rather with the services between branch post offices and the chief post office. The service from the chief post office to the railway station is a further service.
[670] In France heavy parcels are not accepted at post offices, but must be taken to a railway station. Vide supra, p. [206].
[671] The general proportion of parcels to letters for the United Kingdom as a whole is 1 in 40; but on some of the remoter rural routes the proportion of parcels frequently rises to 1 in 20, and sometimes to more than 1 in 10.
[672] Vide supra, pp. [190] and 219.
[673] The naval operations during the present war in regard to neutral mails have brought out clearly the essential distinction between letters and parcels. The arguments as to the customary inviolability of mails have been based on the idea of free communication. But parcels containing goods, possibly contraband, e.g. rubber, obviously cannot claim the privileges of communications, and the right of sea-power to interfere with parcel mails has been admitted. "The Government of the United States is inclined to regard parcels post articles as subject to the same treatment as articles sent by express or freight in respect of belligerent search, seizure, and condemnation."—United States Note to Great Britain, 10th January 1916.
[674] For particulars of other Acts relating to packet postage, and of Acts relating to Ship Letters, and to rates of postage within Ireland, see Schedule A of 1 Vict., cap. 32. Rates for transmission within Ireland were also fixed by 1 Vict., cap. 34 (§ 4).
[675] Vide supra, p. [6], n. 1.
[676] Ibid., p. 7.
[677] Calendar of State Papers (Domestic Series), 1625-6, p. 523.