There is no auditing of railroad accounts. Forty million dollars is annually paid out by the department merely on the statement of the railroads that the service has been performed. There is no effort made to ascertain the truth or falsity of the allegations.
There is no method of accounting for the actual amount of cash received by postmasters in payment for second-class mail. The amount of cash turned in by the various postmasters may or may not bear any relation to the actual amount of such mail received at their respective offices. It is impossible to detect dishonest returns except in some of the most aggravated cases. The average mercantile house which should practice such methods would be forced out of business in less than six months.
The slowness of the Postal Department to adopt modern business methods is strikingly illustrated by the fact that till quite recently the only method of checking the money-order accounts of postmasters was by a hasty examination of the stubs of order books turned in. No account was made or reference taken to the actual receipted orders. Imagine a bank attempting to settle accounts with its customers by the examination of the stubs of their check-books, rather than by reference to the actual checks!
We are driven to the conclusion, therefore, that the Postal Department as now organized and operated would be utterly unable to compete with express companies upon purely a business basis.
Furthermore, it should not be expected that the express companies would quietly drop out of business. They would make a tremendous fight for existence, and would at all events retain such portions of the business as they are now doing at less than the lowest postal rates. The equipment for the express service would, therefore, have to be duplicated in every town and village of the United States. It is folly to presume that the public would not in the end be required to pay for the enormous loss which would be involved in such an uneconomical procedure.
Would it not, therefore, be better to place the proper safeguards around the existing organizations which are fitted to perform the transportation service by the best and most economical means, rather than that the government should undertake the impossible, i. e., competition with private companies upon a purely business basis?
Parcels Post Problem. p. 20.
Parcels Post in England.