3rd. What are the restrictions as to weight, as to writing or other marks, and as to time and place of posting. Whether, in short, the cheap transmission be not made under regulations which would not be tolerated here.
4th. Whether the governments concerned have not either the free use of the railways for the conveyance of mails, or at least their use on very much lower terms than are conceded here.
5th. Whether lowness of postage on printed matter be not obtained at the cost of high postage on letters.
6th. What in the countries referred to is the fiscal result of the postal system? whether, as here, the production of a large net revenue (whose diminution would have to be made good by some other impost); whether, as in various other countries, a bare self-support, or, as in the United States, a deficiency to be supplied from the general taxation.
7th. Whether, in fine, there be not some circumstance, or set of circumstances, which vitiates the example.
It is at least highly probable that when the various examples held up have been subjected to the proposed scrutiny, their validity will shrink into very small dimensions.
Without, however, laying too much stress either way on foreign example, it is manifestly important to consider the present question in relation to other home interests; in recognising the claims of newspapers we must not forget those of letters; the less so as the former are already by far the more favoured class of the two, the allowance of weight of a newspaper being eight-fold that of a letter. It must be borne in mind, therefore, that in case of any surplus in revenue, equality, if not priority of claim, whether for increased weight, increased facilities, or other advantage, may be fairly set up in favour of letters; further, that this claim is prodigiously strengthened by the fact that it is to letters alone (almost exclusively to home letters) that the Post Office is indebted for its net revenue.
Returning, however, for the moment to the separate question of newspapers, it must be remarked that any lowering of that unit of charge which has hitherto been strictly maintained is open to so many objections as to demand that the change, if made, should be made with extreme caution.
1st. The postal conveyance of printed matter—especially of newspapers, since these admit of no delay—is, even at the present rates, under existing circumstances, unremunerative, a fact which becomes very intelligible when the eight-fold allowance of weight is considered, and which of itself overthrows the expectation held out by some that the fiscal loss by reduction would be compensated by increase in the number of packets sent.
2nd. The proposed reduction, if made simply, would inevitably lead to increased demands on the part of the railway companies, and that upon two grounds, (a) augmented weight of the mails, and (b) alleged interference with their parcel traffic. All this will be found to have followed the reduction to the present rates.