The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:

Year Ending.Cost.Sold for.Profit.
5th January, 1841,£4,268£4,292
5th January, 1842,5,5305,470
5th January, 1843,5,2905,415
5th January, 1844,6,1906,540
5th January, 1845,6,9487,261
Total, five years,£28,229£28,978£749

The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on six years.
The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.
The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.

Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the [pg 040] manufacture of envelopes, may be doubtful. Probably it will be judged that the Label Stamps would afford all needed convenience, so far as the government is concerned, and the rest would be left to private enterprise. From the returns of the actual expense of manufacturing envelopes, £359 per million—about a mill and three quarters apiece, it will be seen that there is yet room for individual competition among us, to bring down the current price to the rate of only a reasonable profit.

The third assistant Postmaster-General remarks, in his late report, that the demand for Label Stamps has not been as great as was anticipated, the amount sold being but $28,330, which would only pay for about 500,000 stamps. This is indeed a very great falling off from the number purchased in England, which must be not less than two hundred millions of stamps in the year. He says that “many important commercial towns have not applied for them, and in others they are only used in trifling amounts. But it should be borne in mind, that people are more likely to invest a dollar in stamps, when they get fifty for their money, than when they only get ten or twenty. And when purchased, they are likely to use them up a great deal more freely, when they look at each one as only two cents. With so great a convenience afforded at so cheap a rate, it is not possible but that the demand must be immense, and the use abundantly satisfactory to the people and to the department.”

These stamps would obviate the practical difficulty apprehended in the administration of the cheap postage system, in those parts of the country where the use of copper coin is not common; as it will always be easy to purchase stamps with dimes. I do not believe any persons in this country would be so fastidious on this point, as to be unwilling to send five letters for the same money that it now costs to send one.

VII. New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage.

The principles of cheap postage have been recognized from the beginning of our government, in reference to the postage on newspapers—the charge being regulated, neither by weight nor distance, but, with a single exception, by the rule of simple uniformity. The postage on newspapers is one cent for each paper, within 100 miles, or within the state where printed, and a cent and a half for greater distances. The act of 1844 allowed all newspapers within 30 miles of the place where issued, to go free, but this militated so directly against every principle of equity, that it has been repealed. But cheap postage on newspapers, for the sake of the general diffusion of knowledge of public affairs, has always been the policy of our government. Even during the war of 1812, when it was attempted to raise a revenue by letter postage, the postage on newspapers was not raised. No proposition whatever, to increase the cost, or lessen the facility of the circulation of newspapers by mail, would be sanctioned by the people, under any conceivable exigency of the government.

Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration, [pg 041] that the postage of newspapers was any help to the department, or even that it paid for itself. Many of the unproductive routes, which add so much to the expense, and so little to the income of the department, are demanded chiefly for the facility of getting the newspapers, rather than for letters. We are a nation, of newspaper readers. It is possible, indeed, that the prodigious increase in the number of newspapers circulated by mail, which has taken place within twenty years, and especially within ten years, may have reduced the average cost of each, so that now the newspapers may be productive, or at least remunerative. The Postmaster-General states the postage on newspapers and pamphlets, for the year ending June 30, 1847, at $643,160, which is an increase of $81,018, or 14-½ per cent. over the preceding year, and an increase over the annual average of the nine preceding years, of $114,181, or 21 per cent.

The newspapers passing through the mails annually, are estimated at 55,000,000. In 1843, they were estimated at 43,500,000, of which 7,000,000 were free. If the calculation is made on the whole number, the increase is 20 per cent. in four years. But if, as is probable, the 55,000,000 in 1847 are chargeable papers, the increase is 33-½ per cent. If anything can make the newspaper postage pay for itself, it will be the multiplication of newspapers, as it is well known that a great reduction of cost of individual articles is produced by the great number required. What fortunes are made by manufacturing cotton cloth, to be sold at six or eight cents per yard; and by making pins and needles, which pass through so many processes, and yet are sold at such a low rate. Each yard of cloth, each needle, each pin, is subjected to all those several steps, and yet the greatness of the demand creates a vast revenue from profits which are so small upon each individual article as to be incapable of being stated in money; the cheapness of production extending the sale, and the extent of sale favoring the cheapness of production. An establishment like the post-office requires a certain amount of expenditure and labor, to keep the machinery in operation, though the work be but little, not half equal to its capacity, and it can often enlarge its labors and its productiveness, without requiring, by any means, a corresponding increase of expense; and enlarged to a considerable extent, perhaps, without any increase at all. Thus the cost of the British post-office, which was £686,768 in 1839, when the number of letters was only 86,000,000, was increased only to £702,310, but little more than 10 per cent. in the following year, when the number of letters was increased to 170,000,000. That is, the quantity of business was doubled, while the expense was only increased one-tenth. And in 1846, when the letters were 322,000,000, or nearly fourfold the former number, the expense was only £1,138,745, an increase of but 65 per cent., and the greater part of this—almost the whole—was for increased facilities given, and not owing to the increased number of letters. Had the cost kept pace with the increase of business, it would have been, in 1847, nearly £3,000,000 sterling.