The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-11
THE POSTAL LAWS.
CHAS. ". BURROWS OF CLEVE.
 LAND CRITICISES.

A Student of a Neglected Science
 The Real Cast of the One Cent Mag
 zine-The Question of the Parcels
 Post--European Systems Would Not
 Do Here.
 Charles W. Burrows, president of the Burrows Brothers company. of Cleve- land,and vice president of the National Board of Trade, spoke last night at Osborn hall on the subject of the post al laws of this country and particu- larly upon the proposed parcels post system.
 The general subject of postal laws, MT Burrows has made the study of many years, and recently he wrote an article which attracted notice on Post tai Rates and Literature" for the Yale Review. As the head of a large pub fishing house he has been in position to see the evil effects of the second class mail matter act. It is the pub fisher of books who suffers from the :. very low rates on second class matter. While figures presented last night show an enormous increase in the output of periodical literature the number of booksellers has actually decreased. In the publication of books Spain is the oily civilized country which produces a less number of books per million than the United States. In periodical literature we turn out one and a half as much as all the rest of the civilized countries combined. In 1875 second sclass matter amounted to 40,000,000 lpounds. For the past year under the one cent per pound law over 70S, ,000.00O pounds were handled. Under these con ditions, MT. Burrows predicts postal deficit of about $25, 900 for the fis- cal year ending July 1, 190S
 Mir. Burrows chief attack was upon the worthless periodicals which owe their existence solely to this second class law, and have as their object the propagation of questionable advertis, ing. For certain magazines published in one city In Maine there are three solid car loads of mail carried out ev- cry business day. Every copy repre- sents a loss to the government. This one towns output costs the govern ment over $1,000,000 year.
 First class matter, the regular two cent letter, gives a profit almost equal to the entire revenue from that source. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of these letters originate and are distributed in a group of about 16l important cities of the country. In this case service is inexpensive, It is the delivery of a one cent magazine among the canyons of Wyoming and along the deserts of Arizona that counts; in some cases a cost of twenty-five cents per pound where the postagei only one cent.
 The effort being made to establish a parcels post system similar to that in England Germany and some other Eu- ropean countries, MT. Burrows thought could never be reasonably established in this country. Speaking of this sub ject he said in part
 Now, what is behind this parcels post agitation is the fact that due to this enormous development of the second class mail matter, it's makers are find ing it difficult to produce results for their advertisers.
 Could a parcels post service at low rate of tariff be once put into success ful operation and attain free develop ment, 1t would inevitably increase the returns to advertisers in the columns of the cheap periodicals of monthly issu> ance that are crowding the mails in such numbers. The mail order houses and many manufacturers of advertised small wares would unquestionably ben- eft materially, and on this account it is that we run across so many specioun articles explaining the advantages of following the German, the English, or the Belgian systems in establishing a parcels post service.
 As the development would inevitably give a. serious blow to the small coun- try merchants in all lines and of de- partment stores in the great cities, a blow so crushing as to certainly force many fthem out of existence mer- chants associations in different seo- against these schemes, and will contin- ue to bring upon our national law makers pressure ito defeat legislation whose enactment would permit few