Selected Articles on the Parcels Post

by Unknown

Why Parcels Post Is Not a Good Thing for This Country. pp. 1-5.

W. P. Bogardus.

Parcels post is a scheme in which it is proposed to utilize the post office facilities to carry merchandise. Packages under the proposed bills up to 11 pounds are to be carried in the mails for that sum varying according to weight, from 2c to 25c. It is claimed by the friends of parcels post that by adopting the measure the deficit in the Post Office Department will be wiped out, and a handsome surplus will result. Claims are easily made. But facts have more value in a discussion like this. We are cited to the results in Germany as a substantial proof that post parcels is a paying proposition. They forget to mention that in Germany there are 340 people to the mile and an average haul of mail of but 41 miles, while in this country the average haul of mail is 540 miles and there are less than 23 people to the mile, and they ignore the difference of conditions in the two countries.

But let us look at the report from the German budget. For the year ending March 31st, 1910, the income, in round numbers, from the Post Office Department was $168,000,000 and that included the revenue from the telegraph business. The expenditures were $148,000,000. This on the face shows a surplus of $20,000,000, but in the statement of expenditures there is no account taken of the cost for transportation, on the ground that the government owns the railroads. In this country it costs 20 per cent. to transport the mails. That is, one-fifth of the cost of the Post Office Department is for transporting the mails. Now add 20 per cent to the expenditures and you have $177,600,000, or a deficit of $9,000,000. In England, the friends of parcel post claim that there is a surplus of $24,000,000 in the Post Office Department. But that includes the receipts from the telegraph messages. In England the average charge for packages is 9.8c per pound. In this country it is proposed to send parcels post packages over a territory 30 times larger than England at an average of not quite 3c per pound to a population only about twice as large as there is in England.

When the blind Postmaster General of England first introduced post parcels he reported the results of the measure, but found that there was an increasing deficit each year, and the reports were discontinued. It does not seem possible to get exact figures as to the cost of the system in England, but the presumption is that if there was a large profit in the plan they would parade the fact. As it is, can we expect to make parcels post in this country a profitable scheme? With an average haul of 540 miles to a population of but 23 to the mile, is it possible to carry goods at less than 3c per pound at a profit, if it cannot be done in those thickly settled countries at a much higher rate?

If it cannot be done at a profit, why should the government undertake a scheme that will result in a loss? Rural free delivery is costing the country $28,000,000 more than it is getting for the service, and only about one half of the rural population is supplied with the service.

If the government enters into the plan, it must needs have a monopoly, if successful, of the carriage of packages up to the limit of 11 lbs., else the express companies will take all the short haul packages and leave the long haul packages for the government to carry. Such conditions prevail at present. The express companies take all the short haul packages for less than the government charges and leave the long haul packages for the government to carry, with the result that there is no profit in the business to the government.

If there is a monopoly established on packages up to 11 pounds, what is to hinder the government raising the limit of weight?

Are we prepared to let our government enter into competition with private enterprise? Is it a function of the government to transport freight? Is it a province of the government to correct abuses of private corporations, in transportation and other lines, by entering into competition with them, and using the power the entire people has given it, to force corporations to be less greedy? It would seem that the recent decisions by the Supreme Court would justify us in believing that there is power enough in the laws of the land to protect the people’s rights.

Perhaps in Australia the government enters into more radical schemes than in any other country. And this fact is being developed. That the extension of the control of industry and business, and the activities in every field of production and distribution is but an incentive for a greater demand on the government for further movements in the same direction. The outcome of such policies is a final ending up in complete socialism. Do we want our government to be a paternal one? Are we ready to look to it for our transportation facilities? If we are is there any reason to feel that the government will stop at transportation? Will there not be other avenues of commercial enterprise taken over by the government? One of the great dangers to us, as a people, is the tendency to a centralization of power in the government at Washington and a willingness of a great many people to lean on the government for a solution of many problems that they should solve without the aid of the government.