Difficult to Estimate Cost
No accurate information is available as to whether the European parcels posts are in reality self-supporting. They certainly are nearly so, and in some instances are regarded as profitable government ventures. Everywhere the service is characterized by prompt transmission and prompt delivery. The percentages of loss are very small. The several national constituencies that have a parcels post system would no more relinquish such privileges than American cities would relinquish electric lights or automobiles. One European enthusiast pronounced the establishment of the parcels post “a service to mankind only less splendid than that of the transmission of thought.”
In England it is claimed that the parcels post service would be a source of profit but for the amounts paid to the railroads for transportation, the share of 55 per cent of the receipts being regarded as exorbitant. Generally the parcels post is so joined with the rest of the mail service that its entire cost can not be counted.
The international business has grown to enormous proportions. The figures collected at Berne for 1904, in connection with the Postal Union, show that the parcels mailed across the frontiers of 36 nations and colonies that year numbered something like 38,000,000. The small percentage of that total, where the value was declared, showed an aggregate of about $162,000,000 worth of property. In that list the United States would have stood about eleventh on the showing for the fiscal year of 1906, when 264,438 parcels of an average weight of 2⅔ pounds were sent from this country abroad. Tunis sent more according to the figures than the United States. Germany, leading all other nations both in the dispatch and receipt of parcels in international mails, sent a total of 11,675,385, of which 11,343,516 were classed as “ordinary,” and 331,869 were “with a declared value” of $23,352,378. Austria, enjoying close postal relations with Germany, dispatched 10,659,300 parcels to other countries, of which 1,082,430 had a declared value of $68,396,578.
Has Become Great Factor
The totals of “receipts” and “dispatches” of course balance for the 36 countries in question, but are not the same for each country represented. The rank in parcels dispatched runs: Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Great Britain, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Tunis, British India, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, Denmark, Luxemburg, Japan, and Egypt; in parcels received the order is: Germany, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Russia, Netherlands, Denmark, Roumania, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sweden, Norway, Luxemburg, Tunis, and so on. Switzerland in 1904 received across her borders 2,788,406 parcels by post, of which 2,635,090 were “ordinary” and 133,316 were declared of a value of $9,863,886. Of 6,352,360 parcels that came over the Austrian frontier, 778,380 had a declared value of $64,788,927. Germany received 7,337,404 parcels in international mails, of which 482,472 had a declared value of $35,901,435. The parcels received by post in the United States during the fiscal year 1906 from abroad were recorded as 131,064, of an average weight of 2.73 pounds. Probably the actual number was much larger, perhaps twice as large.
Sufficient figures have been given to indicate what a great factor the parcels post has become in the trade of the world. The value of the merchandise thus transported can only be roughly estimated, but it will probably exceed half a billion dollars annually.
This business is transacted across frontiers, causing little or no friction with customs officers. Boxes with declared value are subject to the legislation of the country of origin or destination as regards payment of stamp duties on articles exported and as regards the control of stamp and customs duties on articles imported. The stamp duties and charges for examination by customs officers involved in the importation are collected from the addressees when the articles are delivered.