It is altogether probable that with thorough organization city delivery could be conducted, within a radius of thirty miles, upon a basis not to exceed one half cent per pound. This would mean but two cents per package for the average four-pound dry-goods parcel, including, of course, the large number which are transported but a few blocks. But that is not the only advantage. It would take from the merchants the constant effort which the maintenance of good delivery systems involves. I have personally studied the delivery systems of nearly all the leading merchants in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and have spent a day in the delivery department of Marshall Field in Chicago. Everywhere I heard the same complaint—that the brains consumed in managing the parcels delivery was one of the most expensive items in the cost of operating a great establishment.
IV. Book Publishers. The cost of delivering a book by mail is now eight cents per pound. This, for a four-pound book, means a tax of thirty-two cents. Just how far this retards the development of intelligence in the people is not difficult to estimate.
V. Stationers’ Supplies. The large class of manufacturers and wholesalers who are engaged in supplying the stationery trade would find the parcels post a great convenience in receiving supplies and in delivering to customers; a matter of lessened capital, lessened trouble, and greatly increased profits.
VI. The Railways. At first sight it might appear that the interests of the railways would not be favored by a postal parcels law. But the briefest analysis of the problem shows that the benefit to them would perhaps be greatest of all.
To-day vast numbers of freight-cars stand idle, waiting carload shipments. These bulk shipments are necessarily made at the very minimum of cost. In the low price of bulk shipments, American railways lead the world. Even at existing prices, however, water transportation carries off a large part of the burden.
The benefits to the railways, by transferring freight from the class of bulk to parcels, would be:
1. Goods being shipped in a constant stream of packages, instead of intermittently by car-load or train-bulk;
2. A higher price would be obtained from shipments of the same freight in parcels as compared with the previous cost in bulk;
3. The large increase in traffic due to better, cheaper, speedier and more direct, and in every way infinitely more convenient, facilities;
4. The additional prosperity which a saving of anywhere from two hundred and fifty to six hundred millions of dollars per annum would mean to the country at large.