By dividing $.80 into the total transportation revenues of the express companies in 1917, we get 280,000,000 as the number of parcels carried by them in that year.
The accuracy of this estimate of the number of express parcels may be gauged from an investigation of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the number of parcels carried by express companies during the month of April, 1917. In that month, some 21,100,000 shipments were carried, from which a total of some 250,000,000 shipments for the whole year may be deduced. Remembering, however, that the freight congestion of last winter increased toward the end of the year the normal acceleration of the number of shipments dispatched, and remembering also that many shipments contain more than one parcel, there would seem to be little variation required from our first estimate of 280,000,000 parcels carried by the express companies in 1917.
Note 2—Many, if not most, shippers, especially in the smaller cities and towns, are able to transport their parcels to the parcel-post station without additional cost to themselves. The fee collected from them should therefore not cover also the cost of collecting packages from other shippers. This statement holds especially for the person who ships parcels only occasionally, not primarily as a business transaction, and who has little difficulty in taking or sending them to the dispatching station. On the other hand, without the pick-up feature of the express service, vehicles would be necessary to convey larger packages or a great number of smaller packages from other shippers; so that this feature of express service is as necessary for certain shippers as it is unnecessary for others and should hence not be included in the charges levied on the latter. Again, in theory there would seem to be little reason why the cost of collecting the express fee from the consignee on delivery should be distributed among the express fees on packages which are prepaid. This situation obtains in the present practice of the express companies, where the one fee includes all services except those of an especial nature. But in practice the present parcel-post method of charging a separate fee for collecting on delivery will have to be radically simplified and cheapened if a Government postal express is to follow this separate fee arrangement. For in 1917 less than 1% of the parcels sent by the parcel-post were dispatched C. O. D. The question is one of administrative efficiency, and in practice the present one-fee-for-normal services system of the express companies might prove more desirable than the theoretically more desirable separate C. O. D. fee of the present parcel-post.
In other countries, practises in this respect vary. In Austria, Italy, Rumania and Switzerland, a special fee is charged for collecting on delivery. Belgium renders this service free for packages upon which the postage is above ten cents and Denmark, when the weight of the package is above ten pounds. Germany collects free upon packages above ten pounds and renders the service at a fee upon packages under that amount.
Note 3—The possibility of economy in a postal express as contrasted with the express companies may be readily understood by a glance at the following table of the equipment required and utilized in 1917 by the express companies of the United States:
| Cars | 256 |
| Horses | 19,986 |
| Automobiles | 2,886 |
| Wagons | 14,907 |
| Sleighs and Buggies | 3,563 |
| Trucks | 56,9243 |
In 1917 there were about 1,800 railway postal cars in operation. These are furnished the Post Office Department by the railroads. As has been said, other corresponding equipment used by the Post Office Department is usually owned by private contractors who furnish transportation by wagon and by automobiles on contract, so that it is impossible to get accurate figures concerning it. Some idea of the equipment needed, however, may be gleaned from the postal operations within the cities of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Nashville. In these cities all the transportation of mail between the railroad stations and the post offices as well as in the collection and delivery services is performed by automobiles owned by the Post Office Department itself. The number of automobiles required for the service in these cities and operated in them in 1917 was 541. This method of conveying postal matter within the cities mentioned represents a departure from the contract system which the Postmaster-General asserts should be and will be extended. Accordingly, more and more the economies under this head in consolidating the express service in the Postal System would accrue to the Post Office Department directly rather than indirectly.
Note 4—The example of the United Kingdom substantiates the last surmise. For in the United Kingdom the railroads, all privately owned, are given 55% of the total charges on all parcel-post parcels carried by them, irrespective of distance. (And there is evidence that this remuneration is expressly considered too generous in the United Kingdom.) Now, the parcel-post charges in the United Kingdom are considerably lower than the express charges in the United States not only absolutely, but also relatively to the different values of money in the two countries. But the railroads' service in carrying a parcel-post package, aside from furnishing mail cars, is no more expensive than their service of carrying an express package of the same weight. If the railroads of the United States were to carry parcels at 55% of the parcel-post charges or at that percentage of the parcel-post charges in this country which, considering the difference of conditions in the two countries, would correspond to 55% of the parcel-post charges in the United States, they obviously would be receiving much less than 50% of the total express charges. Nor should the fact that express packages on the whole may travel farther and weigh more than parcel-post packages invalidate the argument, for the present contracts with the railroads have not been altered to any extent so as to meet any such condition due to the advent of the parcel-post—in the year before the parcel-post was established the railroads got 49% of the net express charges and in 1917, 51%. So that the question as to whether the railroads of the United States obtain on the whole too high a proportion of the express rates because of unduly high percentage clauses in the express company-railroad company contracts is, if not thus answered, at least illumined.