The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-02-14
Atlantic Penny Postage.

From The Times
1t is impossible to measure by any ordinary
standard the benefits which this age receives
from its system of cheap pOstages. Figures,
when they mount into Millions convey but
vague IDEAS yet it is chiefly by figures of this
high Enumeration that we are statistically told
to estimate all that cheap postage has done for
us. But when we reflect upon what is involved
Ill the distribution of millions of letters an
nually, we find ourselves engaged in moral
considerations of the highest degree of interest.
The increase of letters from thousands to mil
lions implies much more than a higher degree
OF education and quicllened stimulus to the
cultivation OF the arts of reading and writing
among the masses. We see in it also the
closer binding together of our people, the
strengthening of the family and domestic ties,
the promotion of social harmony, the multi
plication OF those thousand sympathies so
necessary to our welfare as a nation which
distance tends to sever, but which find their
development under cheap and easy postal
communication. The benefits which commerce
receives are so obvious that we need scarcely
allude to them, and if we have placed the
other class of advantages first, it is not alone
because they are of more general application
but because it is curious though not gene
rally known fact that the proportion of domes-
tic letters to those OF a commercial character
stands as nine to one.
As the invention of the penny postal system
is due to Great Britain, and as it was in opera
ton there many years before it was adopted
here, so there its influence for good, in the
social manners OF the people, has been most
marked in the directions we have indicated.
To her moraists the theme is almost stale, still
no language seems too exaggerated to describe
its effects The invention of railways the diff
fusion OF education, so far as these can be dis
sOciated from cheap postage, are deemed but
as co-eQual factors with the latter, and there
are not wanting those who would assign to the
former an inferior place in the social economy
of the nation.
That the United States and Great Britain
should each, within its own boundaries, enjoy
to the fullest extent the blessings of the cheap
postage system, is a matter of mutual congra-
tulation. But to perfect the system there is
one thing wanting and that is that it be made
common to both. In other words, that the
ocean postage between the two countries be
conducted on the same principle as the land
services within them, and the compensation of
each Government, for taking charge of our
letters at a low rate, be sought IN the in-
creased number which, under such stimulus,
would be sent. The opportunity for etfecting
this desirable end is now open, from causes
we shall proceed to state; and we trust that an
awakened public sentiment will insist that no
arrangement between the two Governments
shall be concluded which does not embrace
this principle.
Almost everybody knows that the postage
rates between this country and Great Britain
are fixed by Postal Convention, made some
years ago, and that the rate on single letter
of half an ounce is twenty-four cents from any
part of the United States to any part of the
United Kingdom. This high rate was fixed
because Great Britain had made contract with
the Cunard Company which involved sub
sidy of about ESQ, 900 for carrying the mails,
and, very naturally, that Government sought,
in high rate of postage, some compensation
for this outlay. We have no need here to go