“The number of chargeable letters in circulation, exclusive of dead letters, during the year ending June 30, 1840, may be assumed at 27,535,554. The annual number now reported to be in circulation, is 24,267,552. Thus, 3,268,000 letters a year and $543,340 of annual revenue, are the spoils taken from the mails by cupidity.”
The Report of the Senate Committee has this remark:
“We have seen in the outset that something must be done; that the revenues of the department are rapidly falling off, and a remedy must in some way be found for this alarming evil, or the very consequences so much dreaded by some from the reduction proposed, will inevitably ensue; namely, a great curtailment of the service, or a heavy charge upon the national treasury for its necessary expenses. It is believed that in consequence of the disfavor with which the present rates and other regulations of this department are viewed, and the open violations of the laws before adverted to, that not more than, if as much as one half the correspondence of the country passes through the mails; the greater part being carried by private hands, or forwarded by means of the recently established private expresses, who perform the same service, at much less cost to the writers and recipients of letters than the national post-office. It seems to the committee to be impossible to believe that there are but twenty-four or twenty-seven millions of letters per year, forwarded to distant friends and correspondents in the United States, by a population of twenty millions of souls; whilst, at the same time, there are two hundred and four millions and upwards of letters passing annually through the mails of Great Britain and Ireland, with a population of only about twenty-seven millions.”
The Senate Report recommended the reduction of the rates of postage to five and ten cents, an average of seven and a half cents, with a very great restriction of the franking privilege, on which it was confidently estimated that the revenues of the department, for the first year of the new system, would be $4,890,500; and that the number of chargeable letters would be sixty millions. The House Report recommended stringent measures to suppress the private mails, with the abolition of franking, without any reduction of postage, except to substitute federal coin for Spanish. It estimated the increase of letters to be produced by reducing the rates to five and ten cents, at only thirty per cent. in number, thus reducing the postage receipts at once to two and a half millions of dollars. It will be seen that each of these calculations has been proved to be erroneous.
The great postage meeting in New York, held in December, 1843, had asked for a uniform rate of five cents. After stating the advantages of the English system, their committee still hung upon the length of the routes in this country as a reason against the adoption of the low rate of postage. They said,
“It is plain that a similar system may be introduced with equally satisfactory results in the United States. On account, however, of the vast distances to be traversed by the mail-carriers, and the great difficulties of travel in the unsettled portions of our country, our petition asks that the rate be reduced to five cents for each letter not more than half an ounce in weight—which is more than double the uniform postage in Great Britain. It is a rate which would not only secure to the post-office the transport of nearly all the letters which are now forwarded through private channels, but it would largely increase correspondence, both of business and affection.
“Above all, the franking privilege should be abolished. Unless this is done, nothing can be done. It will be impossible, without drawing largely upon the legitimate sources of the national revenue, to sustain the post-office by any rates whatsoever, if this franking privilege shall continue to load the mails with private letters which everybody writes, and public documents which nobody reads.”
The bill was passed, but the franking privilege was continued, and yet the Postmaster-General has told us that the current income of the department is equal to its expenses. The predictions to the contrary were very confident. Some of the gloomy forebodings then uttered, are worthy of being recalled at this time.
“The post-office department estimates that the deficiency in the revenue of the department, under the new law, will be about $1,500,000, this year.”—Boston Post.
“An additional tax of $1,500,000, to be raised to meet the deficiencies of the department, in a single year, must principally come from the pockets of farmers, (who write few letters, and are consequently less benefited by the reduction of postage,) in the shape of additional tariff duties upon articles which they consume.”—New Hampshire Patriot.