3—Carry free of charge money and other matter concerned with the business of the railroad.
4—Be responsible for any damage to the expressed goods.
5—Make its charges at least 150% of the freight charge of the railroads for similar merchandise. (The present charges average about 300% of the freight charges.)
6—Furnish, heat, light and man the cars necessary for the transportation of express matter.
NOTES
Note 1—This estimate is based on the following considerations. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911, the official report of the Interstate Commerce Commission gives the average charge per shipment of the Adams and the United States Express Companies on August 18, 1909, and December 22, 1909, respectively—namely, $.4962 and $.4999, or an average of $.4980½ per shipment in 1909. (Many shipments contain more than one parcel.) By dividing this sum into the known total amount of money collected by the express companies for the express services, we can obtain the total number of shipments for that year.
But with the establishment of the parcel post in 1913 the character of the express business underwent a radical change. The fact that the parcel-post limits its shipments to parcels under a certain weight and under a certain size is one factor of the situation tending to transfer to the parcel-post from the express companies a larger number of smaller packages than of larger packages, and hence to make the average charge per package of the express company in 1917 higher than in 1909. A second factor tending in the same direction is the fact that the parcel-post limits the amount of insurance which may be placed on a valuable package, while the express company has no such limit, thereby keeping with the express company most of the valuable packages on which the high insurance makes a high rate. A third factor tending similarly is the fact that for shorter distances the parcel-post rate is lower on the whole than the express rate, whereas for longer distances the express rate is lower on the whole than the parcel-post rate; and accordingly the express companies' average haul was longer and hence at a higher rate in 1917 than in 1909, although not so much longer as might be expected, as has been shown above. A fourth factor of similar effect is the railroad congestion in 1917, causing the expressage of many heavy shipments which had formerly been dispatched as freight, especially in the latter part of the year.
The chief factor moving in the opposite direction is that of the reduction of 16% in express rates effective in 1914; but there is every evidence that the effect of the first four factors outweighs to a considerable extent the effect of the last. So that we should not go far wrong if we assume that the average charge per parcel of the express companies in 1917 was $.80. This estimate is supported by an investigation of the Interstate Commerce Commission for April, 1917, in which the average charge per shipment (often including more than one parcel) was found to be $.85.