Under such an arrangement, a separate bureau would be established in the postal system, covering both the parcel-post and the postal express. This bureau would collect names of farmers—both those voluntarily resorting to it and those reached in its own canvasses—who would send their products collect on delivery to consumers. Similarly, lists of consumers desiring thus to be served would be collected. It would be no difficult matter for individuals on the two lists to get into touch with one another, and to deal directly through either the parcel-post or the postal express. Where they could not by their own arrangements get into touch with one another, the bureau's task would be to get them into touch. And where a farmer and a consumer could not even thus be brought into direct contact, the bureau would act as the agent for each—maintaining warehouses, if necessary, to which farmers would send goods to be sold at a stated minimum price and to which consumers would resort for their purchases. Since these functions are already performed to a slight extent by the express companies, there should be little question of the legality of such procedure by the Government. If necessary, additional legislation might be sought; nor after the activities of the Government during the Great War would there be much likelihood of such legislation being declared unconstitutional.
ECONOMY IN OPERATION
It has been seen that about 50% of the charges collected by the express companies for the transportation of packages go to the railroads, 50% remaining to the express companies. To be exact, in 1917 the sum of $222,860,373 represented the collection charges by the express companies, of which $113,535,059, or 51%, went to the railroads, leaving to the express companies from transportation, $109,325,314. Revenues of the express companies from operations other than transportation brought their total revenues up to $115,920,129. Their operating expenses were $113,721,057. In other words, for every 10% by which Government operation of the express service might decrease the operating expenses of the express service, even if the present contracts with the railroads are assumed by the Government, there should be a saving in the amount of express rates assessed the public of no less than 5%.
Such savings seem inevitable under a Government postal express. Vast as is the extent of the parcel-post operations, there is no evidence that all or even most of its ramifications have yet reached that point of magnitude where the addition of new business means an increasing instead of a decreasing cost per unit. Let it be remembered that the parcel-post carried in 1917 some 1,120,000,000 parcels and the express companies some 280,000,000; so that, taking into account the secondary features of the express service not performed at present by the post office, the inclusion of the express service in the parcel post would increase the latter's activities not much more than 25%. Certainly, it may be fairly assumed that any such services in which the law of increasing costs per unit might hold would be at least counter-balanced by services in which the law of diminishing costs per unit would hold; so that we may consider the economies of a Government postal express absolutely instead of relatively.
CONSOLIDATION OF EQUIPMENT
In the first place, the express companies require for their operations much the same kind of equipment as is required by the Post Office Department. Express cars and railway postal cars; horse-drawn express delivery wagons and horse-drawn post office delivery wagons; motor express trucks and motor post office trucks; express company horses and Post Office Department horses—all do similar work, along similar routes, in similar sections of similar cities at similar times of the day and under similar conditions. The economies possible by consolidation are lessened only slightly by the fact that on the main railroad trunk routes express traffic is often carried by trains composed entirely of express cars, in which there can obviously be little saving by consolidation of the express system and the parcel-post. In passing, it should be noted that the railway mail cars are furnished by the railroads, and in most cases the trucks and wagons and automobiles used in transporting mail through a city render that service by contracts of the Post Office Department with their owners; so that the savings in consolidation would accrue indirectly by lower contract rates rather than directly.
Especially in smaller communities and in the thinly settled outskirts of larger communities can one wagon or one motor truck often render the service now requiring one express wagon or motor truck and one post office wagon or motor truck. On less crowded routes and on less crowded trips, one railroad car can often render the service now requiring an express car and a railway post office car. And on the crowded routes and in the thickly-populated cities, if one vehicle of transportation cannot render the service now requiring two, at least in many cases four such vehicles can render the service now requiring five. ([Note 3].)