The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1895-10-15

elusive governmental function, and no
corporation or monopoly can legally ex-
ercise any part of it. 1t is the duty of
the government to do it, and to do 1t ID
the quickest and most efficient manner,
and at the lowest possible rate consistent
| with the cost.
The Army and Navy and the Depart
| ment of Justice are departments of ex-
elusive governmental functions, In the
same manner and to exactly the same
extent as the postoffice. But suppose
that some branch of the Department OF
Justice (as by turning in the fines, pen
alties and tax fees), or of the War or
Navy, could be made source of reve-
nue.. would it not be singular to turn
over that revenue paying part of those
departments to private monopoly, leav-
ing the people to support the non profit
able part2 Yet that is exactly what is
done with the Postoffice Department.
Though the Postoffice is rs exclusively a
governmental function as the Army or
Navy or the Department of Justice, the
government operates only the slow, anti,
quated non paying part of the postotlice,
leaving the tax payers to make up an
annual deficit of six or eight millions;
while the rapid, improved, up to date
part of the postoffice, the rapid or cleo
trio mail, is operated by private mo-
nopoly and pays heavy dividend on its
watered stock of $50 millions-ten times
the actual value of its plant.
Besides, this system is unjust, for
the private monopoly naturally Sc
lects the best paying districts, and
a large part of the people are de-
MED the advantages of mod
ern postoffice. In every country, save
ours alone, the power of the monopoly
has failed to maintain system so I'M
constitutional and so opposed to the best
interests of the public. Hence, in every
country except ours, the telegraph and
telephone are constituent parts # the
postoffice, with the double result that
the postoffice facilities of the telegraph
and telephone are extended to the coun-
try postoffices and the postal revenues
show profit instead of loss. Notably
Great Britain, which has most widely
extended the use of the telegraph and
telephone as part of its postotfie, shows
large annual profit from its postoffiee
instead of the deficit which was usual
before the telegraph and telephone were
added to that department by Mr. Glad
stone in 1870.
But there are those who say that the
telegraph and telephone would centralize
the government. Yet it would be hard
to see why an efficient postal service is
more centralizing than an inefficient one,
or why mail sent by electricity or pneu-
matte tubes (Which should be adopted in
the large cities is more centralizing than
mail sent by horseback or by steam. 1t
is puzzle to understand why ownership
of telegraph or telephone wires costing
less than $40 per mile should imperil
the government more than the owner
ship of gunboats, or postoffice buildings,
or postal cars. If it were the question
of adding new functions to the govern
ment, as the ownership of railroads and
the carrying of freight and passengers,
this argument would be legitimate one
for debate. But when the constitution
has already turned over the exclusive
duty of the transmission of mail to the
government, there can be no argument of
this kind properly used against the in
PRODUCTION OF the most improved meth
DDS for the transmission Of the mail,
whether by electricity or pneumatic
tubas.
Telegraphic dispatches would be sacred
in the hands of government employees
as other mail is now, or as the kilograms
are in the hands of the employees of
private corporation. Besides, govern
ment employees, especially under civil
service rules and subject to the super
vision of public opinion, would be less
capable of using the telegraph for parti
san purposes, as has been done under
corporation ownership, and as was fla
gravity attempted to be done in the first
Cleveland election, as every one remem-
bers.
With telephones at all country post
offices and all villages and the smaller
towns, few additional employees would
be required, and those few would be
added at centers which require the tele
graph and where civil service rules oh
tain. THE telephones and telegraphs
would be put in the postoffice buildings
already owned or rented by the govern
ment, thus saving the rent of all the
buildings now used by the private com
panies. This, and the saving of the sal
aries of the officials of the present cor
porations and the dividends on their
largely watered stock, would enable the
government to reduce its tolls to the uni
form rate of ten cents per message indie
pendently of the large increase in bust
ness.
In Great Britain 10y the official re-
port made to this government in the
United States Consular Reports for April,
1880 the increase since the government
has taken over the telegraph and tele-
phone has been tenfold in private mes
sages and thirtyfold in press messages;
and the improvement in promptness I