GOVERNMENT POSTAL EXPRESS VS. PRIVATE EXPRESS COMPANIES
At certain periods of each year, the Post Office Department takes a count of the packages mailed in the parcel-post, the postage collected on them, and their total weight. These periods of count are the first two weeks in April and the first two weeks in October. By multiplying their sum by 13, we can thus obtain a fairly accurate figure for the total number of parcels mailed within the year in 1917—roughly 1,120,000,000. On the other hand, the number of parcels carried in that year by the express companies may be put at 280,000,000. ([Note 1].)
Accordingly in 1917 the number of parcels expressed in the United States was roughly as follows:
| By Parcel-Post | 1,120,000,000 |
| By Express Companies | 280,000,000 |
But in 1912, if the average express charge was the same as in 1909, and no reason is known why it should not have been, the number of parcels carried by the express companies was about 320,000,000. In that same year the number of parcels carried by the post office, under the four-pound limit, was 240,000,000. In other words, the effect of the entrance of the Government into what had been a field of private enterprise resulted within five years in an increase of more than 450% in the extent of the service rendered by the Government, whereas the express company's services to the public in that time actually decreased 12½%, although the extent of the total services rendered by the two combined agencies increased 250%.
Nor can the increase in the parcel-post business be explained by the assertion that the Government performs this business at a great loss. The balance sheet of the Post Office Department since 1912 has been as follows:
| 1912 | $1,781,435 deficit |
| 1913 | 4,551,984 surplus |
| 1914 | 4,390,796 surplus |
| 1915 | 11,297,861 deficit |
| 1916 | 5,853,655 surplus |
| 1917 | 9,887,398 surplus |
Now, it is obvious that the financial account of the entire Post Office Department is composed of too many divergent elements for the financial account of the parcel-post alone to have any conclusive bearing upon it. But it is equally obvious that if so extensive and particularly so expensive a function of the Postal System as the parcel-post had been conducted at a considerable loss, the fact would be reflected, to some extent, at least, in a growing deficit of the Department as the parcels conveyed grew in number from 240,000,000 in 1912 to 1,120,000,000 in 1917. Nor have the railroads made good before the courts or before the Interstate Commerce Commission their contention that their recompense for carrying parcels is unfairly low.