Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-12-21
Advanced POstages--Expensive Mail Routes

Advanced POstages--Expensive Mail Routes
The Postmaster General proposes t. take a
step baekward-to raise the letter rate from
three to five cents, and nearly double the news
paper rate. No -eform was ever more accept
able to the whole people than the change from
the old high rates to the cheap three cents
There is no need of further change, except it
be to cheaper letters still more. Two or even
one cent per letter is enough for transmission,
for the cheaper the Post Office does business
the more business it will get. The great mass
of the mails of the country are carried by rail
roads, and full bags cost no more than half fill
ed ones Low postages double and treble the
letters written. Il
In Europe it Is demonstrated that cheap
postage pays better than high. The British
Post Office not only carries letters all over the
Kingdom at penny apiece, but in the cities
delivers them, and obtains a handsome revenue
over expenses. The old and thickly settled
portions of the United States under the three
cent law pay a handsome revenue, and in the
new States and Territories the revenues will
yearly improve as the country populates and
developes Much better to make up any ne
cessary deficiencies in the Department from the
general revenue of the Treasury, than to take
the first step in the direction of high rates of
postage. ALI classes are benefited by cheap
pOstages, and the good of the whole people
should be kept in view.
Economy in various departments of the Post
Office would do much to keep down expenses
to the revenue point Extravagant mail con-
tracts are awarded to political favorites, nom
paying routes and offices are kept up for per-
sonal reasons, and the mails are turned into
great Book transportation lines under the abus-
ed franking privilege conferred on members
Of Congress. The transportation of Delegate
Bernhisels Books and Do, rments to Utah for
the last session, cost the department some ST.
600, and this is but specimen of the cost of
the franking business. Then there are almost
innumerable mail agents, travelling and local,
who live upon the department. Is there more
need that mail carried under lock and key in
q railroad car between Cleveland and New York
in about twenty hours should be accompanied
every trip by mail agent, than when dragged
in the strapped boot of a numbering stage coach
for week between the same points The mail
agencies, choice and fat berths for host of
party favorites in the country, make big hole
in the letter revenues of the country. Better
cut them off, than raise the postages of the
people.
The several mail routes established to the
Pacific constitute one great leak of the Depart
ment. The total expenditure for carrying the
Pacific mails has been run up by Postmaster
General Brown and Congress to the enormous
sum of So, ,200,000 and still there is no daily
line to San Francisco. The Ocean service from
New York and New Orleans, via Panama, to
California and Oregon, costs S73S, ,25O. Over
land mail from San Antonio, Texas, TO
San Diego, California, Sl49,s0O. After
the lst of January next in consideration ofex-
ira services to be performed in connection with
the great overland mail from st. Louis and
Memphis, Sl96, AS per annum is to be the re-
muneration These are semi-monthly Then
We have semi-weekly overland mail from
Memphis and St. Louis, via Ell Paso, to San
Francisco, at 100000; and weekly route by
overland from st. Joseph to Salt Lake, thence
to Placerville, at $4,000 more. Next comes
amOnthly route from Kansas City, via Albu-
querque and TETON Pass, to Stockton, at $780,
600; and finally the semi-monthly route from
New Orleans to Tehuantepec, at $3.50, 900; or,
if the Company carry the mail through on their
own account, to San Francisco, S2S0,000.-
With this expenditure of s., zoe, 900 on several
mail routes where one or two would do all the
business, is it wonder that the Department is
millions short ofbeing self-sustaining Postal
Reform should begin in other quarters rather
than in advanced postage rates.