“We are well pleased, however, that it will turn out as it will. The law will be too popular with the people to be repealed; and it will oblige Mr. James K. Polk's administration to provide ways and means out of the tariff to meet a deficiency of two millions in the postage. This will work favorably to the tariff.
“All things will come right in the end. The lower the postage the more economical the post-office department must be, and the more money the government must raise from the tariff.”—Cleveland Herald.
“Mr. McDuffie is reported to have made the following correct and just remarks, showing he understands well the operations of that Department. If the bill shall become a law, our word for it, that in less than six months one-fourth the offices in the Union will be discontinued, because nobody will be found who will keep them. But let the bill go into operation, and in less than twelve months the very clamorers for low rates of postage will become so sick of it, that they will be the first to unite in demanding its repeal. If we supposed our advice would have any influence, we would recommend to the Department and all Postmasters to hold on to the old books, arrangements and fixtures, even if the bill does pass, because in two weeks after Congress shall meet next year, it will be repealed and the old order restored.”—Kentucky Yeoman.
“ ‘Mr. McDuffie rose, evidently much excited, and after expressing his regret that bodily infirmity disabled him to give the strength of his convictions in regard to the evils which would flow from the bill, he protested against its passage, as a measure more radical and revolutionary than anything that had ever been done by Congress. He denounced it as most unjust. It removes the burden from those who ought to have it, the manufacturers and merchants of the North, and throws it upon the farmers of the South and West, who are already oppressed by the tariff, and who will have to pay the expense by a tax on their necessaries.
“ ‘You will sacrifice the intelligence of the people to the rapacity of the manufacturers. He could not imagine that the agriculturist anywhere could feel postage as a burden; it is but a moderate compensation for services rendered by the government. A poor man pays $10 duty on his sugar, salt and iron, and now you make him pay the postage. You will break up one half of the smaller offices, you will in ten years make the post-office the greatest organ of corruption the country has ever seen, and the man who wields its patronage can command the sceptre. By throwing it on the treasury, you destroy the responsibility of the head of the department, and in ten years you will have it cost you ten millions of dollars.’ ”
Instead of a revenue of nearly four millions, it is therefore probable that the revenue of the first year of the experiment will not much exceed a million and a half. It will be remembered that Congress appropriated $750,000 to make up the expected deficiency; but this will fall far below the necessities of the service; and it is very probable that this sum will be consumed in the payments of the contracts for the two first quarters. They are very busy at the Department sending off letter balances, the postage of which will of course constitute a charge on the Treasury; and as the postage on each of these packets will amount to about three times as much as the first cost of the balances, the Department will make money out of this transaction.—Charleston Mercury.
“I voted against this act. It is probable that a reduction might have been made in the rates of postage which would not have diminished the amount of revenue; but the reduction made by this act is too great, and will have the effect of throwing the Post-Office Department as a heavy charge on the general treasury, which has not been the case heretofore. The post-office tax was the only one in which the North and the East bore their share equally with the South and the West. We would all like to have cheap postage; and if that were the only consideration involved, I would have voted for the act; but there were others which influenced me to oppose it. The reduction of postage will cause a diminution in the post-office revenue, which must be supplied by the general treasury. The treasury collects the revenue which must supply this deficiency, by a duty levied on imports; so that the tax taken off of the mail correspondence will have to be collected on salt, iron, sugar, blankets, and other articles which we buy from the stores. The manufacturing States profit by this, because it aids the protective policy. I might add other objections, but deem it unnecessary at present.”—Letter of Hon. D. S. Reid, of ——, to his constituents.
The Postmaster-General, in his report made Dec. 1, 1845, says:
“So far as calculations can be relied on, from the returns to the department, of the operation of the new postage law, for the quarter ending 30th September last, the deficiency for the current year will exceed a million and a quarter of dollars; and there is no reasonable ground to believe that, without some amendment of that law, it will fall short of a million of dollars for the next year.”
The actual deficiency for the year ending June 30, 1846, was only $589,837; and for the second year above alluded to, ending June 30, 1847, it was but $33,677. And the Postmaster-General's report for December, 1847, estimates the resources of the department for the year ending June 30, 1848, at $4,313,157, and the expenditures at $4,099,206, giving an actual surplus of $213,951. If this expectation should be realized, (and there is hardly a possibility but that it should be exceeded), the income will exceed the annual average receipts for the nine years before the reduction of postage, $51,467. The Postmaster-General ascribes the increase solely to “the reduction in the rates of postage,” while nearly a million of dollars are saved in the expenditures by the provision of the law of 1845, directing the contracts to be let to the lowest bidder, without reference to the transportation in coaches. So far, therefore, the triumph of the law of 1845 has been complete. It has proved that the same economic law exists here as in England, by which reduction of price leads to increase of consumption.