Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-11-30
The Postmaster Generals Report.

NJ large. All bne people are ihtoiosoou III
cheap postage. This great popular boon,
this grand agency for the diffusing of intel
ligence, can be extended in jdstisuch proper.
ton as the postal department is efficiently
and honestly managed. In the late change
Of administration the post-ofice experienced
unwonted good fortune in the appointment
of Mr.. James to the control Of its affairs.
The people are measurably familiar with
his work in particular field of action,-
the unearthing of the star route frauds.
From his report the details of other impor-
tant operations are gathered, and in 1t
reasonable assurance is conveyed that with
continuance of good management, the
department may soon become self-supporting
even under a reduction of letter postage to
two cents.
For the fiscal year ended June 80, 1881,
the excess of expenditures over receipts was
somewhat less than two and one-half mil
lion dollars. The increase in the revenue
of the department for the last fiscal year
was ten and four-tenths per cent more than
that for the preceding year. Allowing for
an increase Of only eight per cent, Mr.. james
estimates that for the year ending June 80,
1888, the deficiency will be less than mil
lion dollars. But there is no reason to be-
lieve that the increase for the last year will
not be sustained, in which event the revenue
of the department will in two years equal
its expenditures. The report reviews at
length the operation of the money order
system in all its ramifcations, and closes
this branch of its subject by recommending
a project for "postal orders of less than
five dollars, to supply the demand which has
arisen since the withdrawal of fractional
currency for some device by which small
sums may be transmitted by mail at slight
cost. The idea and the plan unfolded for
embodying it are simple and practicable,
and legislation to carry the project into
effect would be very acceptable to the public
The idea of using the postal service for
any purpose other than the transmission of
letters and printed matter may reasonably
be objected to, but the reasons the report
gives for the establishment of savings de-
positories in connection with this depart
ment are conclusive as To the desirability of
the project. In large portion of the United
States there are no savings repositories and
are not likely to be, and in those parts
the use of the post-office for this purpose
would be real boon. The system would
afford the ready means of saving to thou
sands of working people, and would not in
terfere appreciably with savings banks since
it would absorb funds not now reached by
these institutions. The correctness of this
view is established by incontestable evil |
dence of the success and benefcence of the |
system in Great Britain. /
Mr.. James takes the business-like ground |
that the post-offce should now be self-sus- |
tanning. He shows that under the policy |
which prevailed in its management up to |
1851 the receipts always equaled the ex-
penditures. He sketches the radical change
that was made in the policy of the depart.
ment from that date, and which eliminated
through vicious management in the closing
year OF Buchanan's administration in a def
cit of more than ten and half million
dollars. The effect of the war upon the
postal revenues was largely to increase them.
The volume of mail matter was vastly in
creased, and the expense of the service was
much diminished by the cutting off of the
south and southwesterly routes, so that in
1865 the revenues exceeded the expenditures
by nearly million dollars. The reestablsh-
ment Of southern mail service, the ravages
of the spoilers and very rapid extension of
the service, have combined again to create
deficiency which for the decade ended in
1876 exceeded twenty per cent, but which in
1880 was only ten per cent of the revenues
of the Office
The star route and steamboat service
shows an aggregate reduction in 1881, to Oc-
tober 3lst, of S1,69l 1884; the aggregate in
crease for the same time was $543 507 show
ing net reduction of sl,l47,757, of which
about round million is to be credited to
the star route service. The reduction of
this service has not caused embarrassment,
and in few cases the first information that
any increase had been ordered was commu-
nicated to the citizens directly interested
in the routes by the notices of discontin-
uance. The postmaster-general protests
against the use of the mail for the trans
portation of merchandise. The bulk and
weight of this class of matter adds so much
to the expense of the service that all the
profit realized from letter postage is alb
sorbed. The people who are benefited
could afford to pay higher rates. If this
matter paid proportionately as high as let
tiers, two cent postage would be assured at
once. The mass of the people are interested
in cheap postage; the few are benefited by
the unremunerative rates on merchandise.
He believes two cent postage is feasible
in the near future and that its adoption will
be followed by favorable results to the peo-
pie and to the postal revenues. The report
concludes with succinct statement of the
postmaster-general's well known views on
civil service reform, the practicability of
which he has demonstrated by experience,
and the full development of which would in
a short time make self-sustaining even I'M
der benefcent reduction of the rates of
postage, a department of the government
service which people had come to believe,
before Mr.. James had dispelled the illusion,
must necessarily involve an annual def
cheney of many millions of dollars.
GENUINE REFoRM.-It is hard to tell
how much of the Especial " correspondence