New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-01-13
THE POSTAL DEFICIT.

The Postmaster Generals annual report fore
casts series of growing deficits in the postal
service. The ideal which that service constant
ly sets itself is to meet from Its own receipts
its ever expanding burden of expenditure. Some
times the ideal is almost realized The postal
service becomes practically self sustaining.
Then new extensions are planned and the
breach between income and outlay widens. We
seem now TO be in the midst Of such period OF
expansion and losing balances. For the fiscal
year 1901-02 the deficit on the Postoffice De-
partment's operations was $685., $40. Expendi-
lures reached S124 7S5 697. Receipts were S121,-
S4s,O47. In the fiscal year 1902-'o3 the deficit
rose to S4,560044 For 10000 the estimated
deficit is S7,2O6.906. and at the present ratio of
postal expansion to postal income the deficit for
19o4-05 is put by Postmaster General Payne
at $s613.709. In 190405 he calculates that re-
ceipts will rise to S159,472O62 But expend-
lures will be swollen to the unprecedented total
of S16S 0s5,77
The largely increased cost of the postal ser
vice In recent years has undoubtedly been due
TO the enormous broadening of the free delivery
system. City free delivery has been established
in hundreds of smaller towns, and rural free de-
livery has been experimental with In every
State in the Union. The cost Of free delivery,
city and rural for the year ending June 80 next
VIII reach SAT, 000,00O-a sum sufficient twenty
years ago for the maintenance OF the entire
postal service. The rural free delivery system
has had q phenomenal growth. In the year
ended June So 1903, SsO11. 635 was spent on
it. Since then, II is safe to say, its cost has
more than doubled, and 1t viii continue TO re-
quire an outlay greatly exceeding any possible
income from IT for many years TO come. Rural
free delivery Is here TO stay Although ex-
plotted with undue lavishness and recklessness
under the Machen regime, the system has fairly
demonstrated Its usefulness and popularity. II
VIII continue to spread until its benefits are
1oyed In ell but the most remote and sparsely
settled rural communities.
Granting the inevtability Of this extension.
the postal service can look forward only to a
long series Of annual deficits. II has been the
tendency OF past extensions 10 bring within n
few years an increase In postal business more
than commensurate with operating costs. Man
aged with an eve only 10 immediate profit the
postal service could, on fits present basis soon
be made to pay n handsome surplus. But en-
barking on public service so little inclined to
pay its way as rural delivery, the PostofIice De-
partment must face the necessity OF sacrificing
the returns of the present TO the demands OF
the future. The profits it could make ON town
and city business must go to meet the debts of
Its rural service. Not until the country is edu-
Gated up to use of the mails which will re-
turn their cost of operation can we look hope
fully TO the realization of every Postmaster
Generals ideal-the establishment Of the vast
machine which he directs on an independent
and self-supporting basis