Hearings before the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads. April 20-29, 1910. pp. 296-7.
Postal Savings Bank and Parcels Post.
Letter of Dr. Barth.
Whilst the postal savings-banks system became firmly established some time ago in Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Holland, Austro-Hungary, Russia, and Sweden, all efforts have failed to introduce the system into the German Empire. In the year 1885 the draft of a postal savings-bank law was laid before the Reichstag. The draft never came out of the committee. The principal reason of this opposition lay in the competitive interest of the many local savings banks existing in Germany, which are generally under the control of commercial boards of directors. Since the frustration of the plans for the law in the year 1885 no further serious efforts have been made to introduce postal savings banks.
All the greater has been the development of the parcels-post traffic with us. This traffic dates in Prussia back to the eighteenth century. Under Frederick William I there already had been introduced a postal monopoly (the exclusive right of the mail to forward packages) for packages up to 20 pounds. Under Frederick the Great this monopoly was increased to 40 pounds. By a postal law of June 5, 1852, it was again reduced to 20 pounds, and only entirely abolished by the law of March 20, 1860. This postal monopoly has never been revived in Germany; nevertheless, the parcel postal traffic has developed tremendously without the protection of a monopoly. In Germany the weight for postal parcels has now been set at 50 kilograms (110 3-10 pounds); while, as is well known, there has also existed since 1885 European international parcels-post traffic with a maximum weight limit of 5 kilograms (about 11 pounds). Only very few articles within the aforementioned weight limits are excluded from the postal traffic. Even live singing birds, fish, crabs, fresh flowers, grapes, etc., are sent by us in postal parcels. The parcels-post service in Berlin employs about 1,000 officials. The rate within the postal territories of Germany and Austro-Hungary is 25 pfennigs (6 cents) for packages up to 5 kilograms (about 11 pounds) in weight and 10 geographical miles in distance: at 50 pfennigs (12 cents) for further distances. With heavier parcels the rate increases rapidly for every kilogram (2½ pounds) in excess of 11 pounds with the growing distance, so that, for instance, at a distance of 150 geographical miles every kilogram over 5 costs 50 pfennigs (12 cents) more. This rate proves that the post lays its principal stress on receiving parcels up to 5 kilograms (11 pounds) in weight.
The parcels-post traffic in 10-pound packages is therefore the normal one. For many trades and producing branches a very strong direct traffic between the producer and the consumer has grown up in these 10-pound packages, and many articles which in the locality in which they were produced were either not utilizable, or forced to sale at a very low figure, have found a market which without the cheap 50 pfennig (12 cents) postage they would never have attained. Mushrooms gathered in the forests of Masuren near the Russian frontier come to Berlin in postal parcels. Large crabs caught in the waters of western Prussia come even to Paris. We ourselves, for example, obtain for our household through the parcels post meat from Silesia, butter from eastern Prussia, eggs from Mecklenburg, melons from Hungary, etc. For the household this is not only cheaper but also more convenient than the purchase in the market halls, for the post brings the parcels (for delivery sum of 15 pfennigs; 3½ cents) to the door, also calls for parcels, cashes in the amount in c. o. d. deliveries, in short, makes it extremely convenient for the order. It is clear that this postal traffic forced out many middlemen; the retailers especially in small places have been made to feel very keenly the competition of the large forwarding houses in the capital cities. Their complaints therefore were formerly directed very actively against the cheap parcels postage. But since the flat land in turn could derive benefits for its agricultural products, such as fruits, meats, butter, eggs, etc., from these self-same cheap rates, the complaints of the retailers became silenced after awhile as far as the question refers to the cheap parcels rates. They now turn so much the livelier against large warehouses and forwarding businesses for whom one is seeking through all sorts of lawful tricks to make the competition more difficult. The parcels-post traffic has meanwhile become so firmly rooted that it seems impossible to upset it. Considered from a politic-economic viewpoint it presents itself as a most important and very beneficent branch of the whole system transport.
Following the German example in the United States would, I believe, be of enormous advantage, particularly for the agricultural districts surrounding the large cities. For the producer of eggs, poultry, butter, vegetables, fruits there would develop, with a cheap parcels-post rate, entirely new market possibilities; also the decentralization of many branches of industry would to a certain degree become a possibility.