But cross the Atlantic, visit the United States, and before you have time to experience any of the inconveniences of the postal service, you will be told it is the smartest in the world. It is not only the man in the street who makes this claim; the Postmaster-General does it frequently in his Annual Report. Here is the conclusion of one Annual Report: it is the Postmaster-General's peroration: “It is therefore not too much to state that in most of the more important relations of the Postal Service, as shown by the statistics, the United States leads the world.” It is not too much to say of this outburst that if the British Postmaster-General were to say this of his Post Office in his Annual Report, a reduction in his salary would be at once moved in the House of Commons, and it would probably be carried by the combined votes of Imperialists and Little Englanders. Owing partly to the language used by postal reformers there is an idea prevalent in parliamentary circles that the British Post Office is behind the times.
I am not denying that the United States Post Office is splendidly organised, nor that in many respects it is in advance of our own system and that of other countries, but we like to discover the advantages ourselves. If, however, the service is excellent, it certainly does not pay: the United States Post Office is carried on at a loss. And this is due, as their own officials admit, to the low rates, and the way the low rates are taken advantage of unfairly by smart Americans. The “mail matter,” as it is called, is classified, and there are different rates for each class. First class, letters and post cards; second class, periodical publications; third class, miscellaneous printed matter; and fourth class, matter not included in other classes. It is the lowness of the charges for the second-class matter which is the despair of the Post Office economist in America, and to this he attributes largely the loss on the business. There is, for instance, a monthly publication in a large eastern city which weighs 4 lbs. It is delivered by the Post Office for two cents in the city in which it is mailed: it is carried free of charge to any post office within the county in which it is published, and is sent to such remote places as San Francisco, Cuba or Hawaii, at the rate of four cents a copy. For what is virtually a volume, this is an absurdly low charge for carriage, and in comparing rates of postage with those in the United Kingdom, it must not be forgotten that letters are conveyed in America over much greater distances than in this country.
There is a growing demand in this country for a cheaper rate for periodical publications, and those who make the demand are justified in claiming that the Post Office exists for the convenience of the public, and that a reform which would be the means of increasing the circulation of useful and entertaining publications should receive the support of the State. But they are not justified in pointing to the example of America, unless they are prepared to admit that the increased charge will ultimately fall on the taxpayer of this country. The question is, “Are we justified in charging the taxpayer for a reform which will only benefit a comparatively small number of the public?” If they can convince the public through the representatives of the people in the House of Commons, the reform will be carried; but it is difficult to see how, if it is, the postal revenue of something over three millions, which at present goes to the relief of taxation, will be maintained.
In one respect the American officials are vastly ahead of us. They too have apparently suffered much from the applicants for information who are ignorant of the very elements of postal business. It has therefore occurred to the officials that systematic instruction might be given to the public on postal subjects. Here is the official order to postmasters: “Postmasters are hereby directed to confer with their local school authorities with the view of adopting the most effective method of instructing school-children as to the organisation and operations of the postal service. These instructions should cover such features of the service as the delivery of the mails, the classification of mail matter, the registry and money order systems, and particularly the proper addressing of letters and the importance of placing return cards or envelopes. Postmasters should arrange if possible to deliver personal talks to the pupils on these subjects, and should give teachers access to the Postal Guide and Postal Laws and Regulations, and render them every assistance in securing necessary information.”
Instead of being treated as a joke, as a similar order might have been in this country, numerous letters were at once received by the United States Post Office from postmasters and school-boards all over the country indicating the liveliest interest in the subject.
This is a chance for a British Postmaster-General to save his successors much unnecessary and trying correspondence, by adopting a similar policy.
The rural delivery of letters in the United States was during many recent years in a very backward state, but considerable advances have lately taken place. The fetching of letters from the post office was the practice in places with even a large population.
A writer in the Paris Messenger not long ago was very indignant at the claims made by an official of the American Government, “that the American postal system was the best in the world and the best managed.” The writer said he had made an examination of European postal systems recently, and this was about as impudent a pronouncement as can well be imagined. America possesses no Postal Savings Bank, no Postal Telegraph system (in many Western States it costs three francs to send a dozen words a hundred miles over the monopolist private wires), there is no system of Parcel Post such as exists in England, and until recently there was no rural delivery. To see a long line of citizens, even in towns of five and six thousand inhabitants, waiting outside the post office for their morning mail, was as curious a sight for a European as could be imagined. I should add that the writer was an American.
The report of the United States Postmaster-General is frequently a more plain-spoken and colloquial document than the purely business statement which the British Postmaster-General issues annually. This is only to be expected. Other officials in the United States have the same breezy style.
A complaint was made to the Postmaster-General by a sheriff in Texas on the conduct of a postmistress. He accused her of incivility. “We don't set up any claim that our manners are all that they should be, but we'd like to be reasoned with and helped along. The postmistress here is a worthy woman all right, and there ain't a thing against her character, but she certainly is rude and hasty. One day last week the mayor, being some flushed up and careless, refused to remove his hat and bow on asking for the official mail, whereupon his hat was shot off and plumb ruined, and he left the post office so swiftly and undignified that it told against the standing of the town. There's another thing we don't think is fair. The postmistress won't let niggers and greasers come in the office under any consideration. We ain't over fond of niggers and greasers ourselves; but it is sure discommoding for the leading citizens to have to go to the post office personally to get the mail just because this lady don't like to see anything but a gentleman. We don't like to appear fault-finding and picayunish where a lady is concerned, but this I'm telling about is sure arbitrary and abrupt, and we'd like to have her tamed down some.”