express service run by the general Government. Relief will only be found under some system which will bring the producer of the necessaries of life into direct relationship with the consumer,[420] in order that the enormous middleman's charges be eliminated and the consumer obtain the produce at a price not greatly above the actual cost of production. The railways refuse to handle shipments less than 100 pounds, and their minimum charge is 25 cents. The ordinary consumer who requires consignments of much less than 100 pounds' weight has no use for such a service. For shipments of less weight, the only service available is the express service, the minimum rate for which, in general 25 cents, is too great for farm products, which are usually of low value and could not bear a rate of 25 cents. The express service, which is restricted to the railway system, has, moreover, no means of reaching that vast body of the people, estimated at some 40,000,000, who are living on the farms, and who alone are able to supply the desired traffic in food-stuffs. The Government has in recent years, at heavy expense, extended to some 20 millions of people the benefits of free mail delivery, and the intention of the advocates of a Government express service, a "postal express," is that the State should take over the express companies, paying them fair compensation for their property, and work their service in conjunction with the rural mail delivery. By this means an extensive service could be provided at reasonable rates of charge.[421]
In February 1908 Bills were introduced in the Senate to increase the limit of weight of fourth-class matter, and to provide a rural delivery parcel post for merchandise and other articles mailed on rural delivery routes. Legislation did not, however, result.
Meantime, the feeling in favour of a parcel post was spreading, more especially in the farming districts. In November 1911 a Sub-Committee of the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads was appointed to examine
the practicability of establishing a parcel post system. The Sub-Committee was appointed on a resolution of the Senate, moved by Senator Jonathan Bourne, Jr., the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, and there is indication that the adoption of the system had already been practically decided upon, the real question before the Sub-Committee being that of its practicability as an immediate proposition. The Post Office representatives advocated a limited experimental introduction of parcel post on rural routes and in the city delivery offices. They were impressed with the radical differences between the United States and most other countries where parcel post was in operation, and hesitated to recommend the introduction of a general service. But the members of the Sub-Committee had in mind to introduce as soon as practicable a complete system by the method of enlarging the scope of the fourth-class regulations and reducing the rates of postage. Numerous witnesses appeared before the Sub-Committee, representing general societies of business men, such as the National Dairy Union, the Associated Retailers of St. Louis, Me., and the Retail Dry Goods Association of New York; educational or social societies, such as the American Library Association, the Postal Progress League, and the Knights of Labour; farmers' societies, such as the State Granges and the Farmers' Educational and Co-operative Union of America. Several farmers, lawyers, and other gentlemen appeared to give their own personal views. The chief opposition to the parcel-post came from the representatives of the retailers, who stand in constant fear of losing their business to the mail-order or catalogue houses. The business of these houses is very large, amounting in the aggregate to nearly $200,000,000 per annum, and there is perhaps some reason for the local merchants' apprehensions. The bulk of the mail-order traffic is, however, distributed as freight. But the country merchants were much alarmed, and there were doleful prophecies of the results of a parcel post. The local merchant was represented as the mainstay of the country-side. He it was who sustained the country town, which afforded so valuable a local market for the farmer. He it was to whom alone that same farmer could look for credit to tide him over bad times. He it was
who made the country town a social centre where the farmer might come into touch with civilization and refinement. And on the continuance of the prosperity of the country merchant depended the continuance of the army of travelling salesmen, without whose patronage railroads would be driven to reduce the number of trains, hotels would go out of business, and throughout the country accommodation for travellers would be found extremely poor. In short, parcel post would reduce the country merchant to the same condition as the small shopkeeper in Europe; and the country towns would become mere hamlets and deserted villages.[422]
The parcel post was, of course, as likely in 1912 to prove a blow to the express companies as in the earlier years when they had so strongly resisted any proposal for its introduction. In face, however, of the strong and widespread movement in the country in its favour, they realized that they would be unable always successfully to resist its establishment, and no open opposition to the proposals of 1912 was encountered from them. They did not appear before the Senate Sub-Committee.
The Sub-Committee saw no insuperable difficulty in the way of introducing a general system at once. Moreover, they were impressed by the fact that a parcel post system was in operation in most other countries of the world, even in Australia, a country slightly larger in area than the United States and much more sparsely populated, where the two factors which so radically distinguished the United States from most other countries in which a parcel post had been established were met with in even greater degree.
When the questions of the desirability and practicability of establishing a system had been decided, there still remained the difficult and important question of the scheme of rates of charge on which the system should be based. Some of the
witnesses before the Sub-Committee advocated a uniform rate, representing that a graduated rate was undesirable and would be unacceptable, as giving a special privilege to certain sections of the people. A more general opinion was that a flat rate would be unsound economically. With such a rate, the express companies would step in and take all the profitable traffic; and it would, moreover, be necessary to fix the rate so high as to render it prohibitive for goods of low value and for the purpose of moving traffic on the rural routes. In a country of vast extent the actual cost to the Government for the transportation of parcels of the same weight would differ widely in proportion to the distance for which they were conveyed in the mails, and the differences would be sufficiently great to render it easily possible to graduate a scale of postage approximately in accordance with the distance and the actual cost. The department estimated the cost of transportation for mail matter to be 1·32 cents for each 200 miles, and taking this as a basis, differential rates in respect of transportation were arrived at for a series of zones.
The charge for handling, i.e. for collection, delivery, administrative and all other incidental services, was calculated as an altogether separate item. The Sub-Committee had the evidence of Mr. John L. Newbold, a gentleman of long experience in a transport business which dealt mainly with small parcels for delivery within the limits of the City of Washington, and was therefore in a high degree comparable to delivery service which would be performed by the Post Office in respect of parcels. Mr. Newbold offered to contract with the Government to handle all post parcels for delivery within the City of Washington at 5 cents a parcel, with a limit of weight of 25 pounds. Estimates by similar delivery companies in New York City indicated the cost to them of packages up to 25 pounds, which was a little over 5 cents per package. The department's estimate of the handling cost of fourth-class matter showed a cost of a fraction under 3 cents for the first pound, with an approximate increase of 20 per cent. for each additional pound.