The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1881-11-24
Editor
Cheap Postage.
fPhiladelphia Press. |

Postage-General James has made
the most important report of the year.
Any one of his four propositions-a
cheap money order, reorganization
of the railway mail service, reduc-
tion of the salaries of postmasters, or !
two cent letter postage would have
made his report remarkable. The |
four make it unexampled. In It Mr.. |
James has added one more to the two |
great reports in the history of the |
department-one OF which reorgan-
lied the postal service under Kendall, |
and the other brought about uniform
letter postage thirtv years ago. The
time is auspicious for the one change
proposed by Mr. James, which gives
edge to all the rest, cheap postage,
which brings reform home to every
mans pocketbook and every woman's
portemonnaie, and which proposes to
declare q dividend on the results of
practical economy, and give the people
on every letter mailed q cent out of
every three hitherto taken from their
pockets.
The proposition scores at once the
measure of Mr.. James reforms and
the extravaganza he uprooted. He
has worked no miracle. For five
years every candid observer has
known that efficiency, honesty and
skill were all that were needed to
make the change from three-cent to
two-cent letter postage possible, and
MIR. James is well within bounds in
declaring that the Department, with
the aid of Congress, can present to the
country in 1884 two-cent letter postage
as the result Of a Republican admins
tration of the Post Office Department.
The change involves deficiency little
larger than the normal loss of the
Post Office Department five years ago,
and no more serious than was faced
when three-cent postage was intro
dueed In 1851. Existing reforms have
reduced the estimated deficiency of
the Department for the next fiscal
year to S920,077, upon a revenue of
S4Z,56l, ,722. But single item in these
revenues, that from full-rate letter pos.
tage, will be affected by this change.
this judging from the tables in the re-
port for 1SS0,-the present report
comes unaccompanied by tables-is
not over S24, ,000,0O0. The receipts for
1880 were S94, ,315, ,479, and of these "a
per cent, or S31, ,49t, 100 were derived
from postage stamps, stamped envel-
opes, newspaper wrappers and postal
cards, including the smaller but still
considerable receipts from foreign
mails. The revenue received on local
matter and the other sources men,
TONED, whose rate would not be
changed by reducing letter postage to
two cents, aggregated in 1880 over Sl2,-
Ooo,OO0, so that the revenues which
have been actually affected in 1880 by
the proposed change was about s19,-
Ooo,oOo. In the fiscal year 1888,
the share of the postal revenue
affected would, there fore, not be over
24,OOO, ,OoC,-probabIy under this sum,
and two-cent letter postage would
prihg q dehclt of ", 600, 900.
A large part, at least one-half, of
this deficit could be left to the inevit-
able increase in mail matter which
would follow this reduction in a few
years, so that the deficit which a pro
dent administration would be called
on to meet by its economy would be
from 100000 to $5,OOO,O 900. Mr..
James points out where this saving
could be made without entering into
"details. The mails are carried wholly |
by passenger trains, and in 1880, the |
payment of the Department to the |
railroads were six per cent. of the en-
tire revenue ofall railroads from pas
sengers traffic. The proportion is
the same now; but no sane man sup-
poses that it costs the railroads nearly
one-sixteenth as much to move the
mails as to do all their passenger busi-
ness. Since 1868, the amount paid to
postmasters has increased out of pro-
portion to the work done and while
the number of postmasters has but
Ittie more than doubled, their salaries
nave Kept pace with the iucome of the
Department. Reductions in salaries
and a redistribution of railway mail
pay would more than meet half the
necessary deficit. If an, addition to
rates on second, third, and fourth-class
matter proves needed to meet the rest
the public sentiment of the country
VIII be inclined to support a step
which would add to the efficiency and
increase The benefits of the Federal
mail to the many.
The Republicans will have clear
in the coming House, not
withstanding the loss of one member
fRAnn Maur XnrIr O.,o L.. L. Il - |