Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1854-04-14
Ocean Penny Postage.

For long time Elihu Rurrit has been en-
gagged in efforts to have the rate of ocean
Postage reduced To all classes who have
occasion to communicate by letters across the
ocean the present high rates are annoying,
but they bear with special severity on the
poor, of whom such multitudes of late years
have occasion to exchange words with their
friends. Reducing the ocean rates must
produce such an effect as the reduction on
land has effected. viz, an immense increase
OF the letters. Some parts of "A communca-
tion of his to the Washington Union we give
below. The whole is too long for our room
SIR Having, as hope, demonstrated that
an ocean penny-postase will pay. permit me
to advert to its bearing upon the well-being
of millions of hard-working men and women
in this country who were born in foreign
lands. Their number cannot be less at this
moment than three millions. And still they
come, at the rate of nearly thousand day,
from all the oppressed populations in the Old
World. The three millions that have already
dispersed themselves over the Union, from
California to Canada, have left behind, in the
lands Of their birth, at least fifteen millions
Of relatives and friends, to whom they are
bound by the strongest ties of nature and
affection The Irish, German and other en-
igrants from Europe in this country, write
and receive full one-half the letters that
cross the Atlantic; and, in consequence of
the poverty of their friends across the SEA,
they pay the postage both ways, for, Mr.
Editor, how can poor agricultural laborer
in Saxony' whose wages do not average more
than ten cents day, pay hi0y cents postage
on letter FROM his son in Wisconsin 1t is
Il fact that the Irish and Germans in this
country pay the postage even on their remit
tances OF money to their parents or relatives
III Europe, not only that their gifts of aifcc-
tion may not he diminished by farthinr,
but that those who arc to receive them may
not be obliged to go around among their
peasant neighbors to beg or borrow, penny
eSafgea S Sh Ee letter, before they ma may take take
it from the office :. Dur;n,,
the year 1852 the Irish emigrants in this
country sent more than s. O0n .OUO To tbcir p
relatives and friends in Ireland, in sums proI,-
ably not averaging above 500 per remittance
Thus, it required $50 900 letters merely IN
convey this vast sum to as many homes in
Ireland. The other half of the letters that
cross the Atlantic belong chiefly to CONNER
0dt correspondence. They are the comrnuni-
cations that pass between rich merchants in
~" "''' T"Iopc, VINO never pay the
postage on them out of their own pockets. but
charge it on the goods they scll to their Gus
toners. Thus the merchant receives back
the whole postal expense ON this commercial
corresrondcncc' both principal and interest
and rroht, too; for he expects, and ought to
expect, to make as much profit Der cent. out
OF the money he pays in postage, as from the
same amount of expenditure in any other
direction Clearly, then nearly the whole
direct, sensible tax for the Transmission of
the mails between the United States aud
Europe Is imposed urun the poor, hard-work-
my men and women who have been expatri-
ated 10 this country by poverty and orprs,-
sion in the Old Worli We ask our govern.
ment to llft from the nter.ommuniun Of these
sea-dI'lI"d millions, that icy tax that now
lctterS is current, that it may hereafter run
full aud free