| From Austria: | |||
| 4½ | pounds | .35 | |
| 11 | pounds | .86 | |
| From Italy: | |||
| 7 | pounds | .39 | |
| 11 | pounds | .79 | |
| From Norway: | |||
| 2½ | pounds | .16 | |
| 11 | pounds | .96 | |
| From Germany: | |||
| 4½ | pounds | .33 | |
| 11 | pounds | .81 | |
| From Belgium: | |||
| 4½ | pounds | .35 | |
| 11 | pounds | 1.10 | |
| U. S. Foreign Rates: | |||
| 2¼ | pounds | .36 | |
| 7 | pounds | .84 | |
| 11 | pounds | 1.32 | |
| U. S. Domestic Service: | |||
| 2¼ | pounds | .36 | |
| 4½ | pounds (2 parcels) | .72 | |
| 7 | pounds (2 parcels) | 1.12 | |
| 11 | pounds (3 parcels) | 1.76 | |
Under the English post-American express arrangement English postal parcels now come to New York three pounds for sixty cents; seven pounds for 84c; eleven pounds for $1.08, and these parcels are forwarded by the American express company throughout the country at a common rate of twenty-four cents a parcel, eight cents a pound on a three-pound parcel; about three and a half cents a pound on a seven-pound parcel, and less than two and a half cents a pound on an eleven-pound parcel. Meantime the express company taxes domestic merchandise of the same weights from 25 cents to $3.20, according to the distance traversed, while Congress taxes the public for a similar domestic postal service, three pounds, forty-eight cents; seven pounds, 2 parcels, $1.12; eleven pounds, 3 parcels, $1.76.
Data Relative to Proposed Extension of Parcel Post. pp. 8-14.
From The Boston Herald.
Ernest G. Walker.
Postmaster-General Wanamaker first actively urged the establishment of a parcels post on a large scale. He summed up the situation epigrammatically in his 100 reasons for it and only 4 reasons against it—those 4 being the express companies. Others after him, especially the late Postmaster-General Bissell, made like recommendations. But Mr. Meyer now has an advantage in his campaign which none of his predecessors had in the rural delivery routes. Every one of the many thousands of routes would be a little parcels service in itself, aside from being a line of communication, by which small packages could be conveyed from all parts of the country or to any part of the country. Mr. Meyer is building much upon that fact. The local service at cheaper rates will also protect the local store-keepers, to which the big department stores and mail-order establishments are bogeys.
Ever since he announced his intention of urging a better parcels post service for the United States, the Postmaster-General has been the recipient of many letters. These come from various classes of people. Most of them commend his plan, but the retail associations, such as the associations of hardware men and grocers, come out in bold opposition. It is such people as these that the Postmaster-General hopes to convert when they are brought to understand the details of what he wants to do. Some of these critics, besides claiming that the legislation would favor the catalogue houses, argue that the government should not go into a general freight business and that if the express companies are charging exorbitant rates, the Interstate Commerce Commission, which now has authority over them, should step in and require that the rates be lowered.
The operations of parcels post in other countries make a very interesting transportation chapter. They are conducted on a gigantic scale and, apart from what J. Henniker Heaton, long an English member of Parliament from Canterbury, and a great advocate of postal reforms, calls “grandmotherly regulations,” have worked with practically world-wide success. Shopping by mail is made easy, whether one in the country would trade with the local draper or the big metropolitan merchant.