"It seems to the Commission that not only justice and good conscience, but also the efficiency of the postal service and the best interests of the country demand that the railway-mail pay shall be so clearly fair and reasonable that while, on the one hand, the Government shall receive a full quid pro quo for its expenditures and the public treasury be not subjected to an improper drain upon its funds, yet, on the other hand, the Railway Mail Service shall bear its due proportion of the expenses incurred by the railroads in the maintenance of their organization and business as well as in the operations of their mail trains.
"The transaction between the Government and the railroads should be, and in the opinion of the Commission is, a relation of contract; but it is a contract between the sovereign and a subject as to which the latter has practically no choice but to accept the terms formulated and demanded by the former; and, therefore, it is incumbent upon the sovereign to see that it takes no undue advantage of the subject, nor imposes upon it an unrighteous burden, nor 'drives a hard bargain' with it. The Commission, therefore, believes that the determination whether the present railway mail pay is excessive or not should be reached, as near as may be, upon a business basis, and in accordance with the principles and considerations which control ordinary business transactions between private individuals."
THE POSTAL CAR PAY.
The wide credence which has been given to the statement that the Government is paying to the railroads an annual rent for postal cars equal to the cost of building them is remarkable.
The Government does not pay a rental for any car. The idea is an erroneous one, and is based upon ignorance regarding the payment of what is called "Post Office Car Pay."
Originally, the mail business on railroads was the transportation of mail bags, and was essentially a freight traffic. But its character has entirely changed.
The business now consists almost wholly in providing moving post offices, expensive to build and expensive to operate, in which the average weight for which pay is received is about two tons in full postal cars and six hundred pounds in apartment cars.
The Post Office Department weighed all the mails carried in all postal cars and apartment cars in the country during October, 1907, and the average weight of mail on the Burlington road loaded in a forty-foot postal car was found to be less than 2,000 pounds; in fifty-foot cars it was 2,500 pounds; and in sixty-foot cars it averaged less than 4,500 pounds; in apartment cars it was 607 pounds.
The average load carried in an ordinary freight car on the Burlington road is from 36,000 to 40,000 pounds. Railroads, as a rule, haul a ton of paying or productive freight for every ton of dead or unproductive load. In the Government mail business they carry nineteen tons of dead weight for each ton of paying weight.
These cars are fitted up as post offices and are used for distribution en route in order to expedite and facilitate the prompt transmission and delivery of mails. They largely take the place of very expensive distribution offices in cities.