The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-01-18
Correspondence Baltimore County Union.
THE PARCELS POST.
RAYvILLr, Md. January b

RAYvILLE, ND, January 18th. 1908.
Editors Union I'm a former article 1t was
stated that the United States postal rate on
package carried from Baltimore to Towson is
5000 per cent. greater than is charged by the
German government for package carried to
the extreme end of the Austro Hungarian en-
pire-a distance of about loo miles.
The United States Postofice Department lin
its the weight of package of fourth-class mat
ter to four pounds, and the claim has been made
that the Government is losing money by carry
ing that class of mail matter at sixteen cents per
pound and this claim is made in spite Of the
fact that for over twenty years it has been carry
ing packages of periodicals weighing up to two
hundred and twenty pounds for one cent
pound. Many publishers do not even take ad-
vantage of this rate in sending their publica-
tions to the distributing agencies because the
express companies take this business away from
the Postoffice Department at the rate of from
one-fifth of cent pound for nearby by ship
ments to nine-tenths of cent pound to Chi
cago and st. Louis.
About seventy per cent. of the periodicals
shipped from New York to the distributing news
agencies are sent by Merchants Despatch and
other slow express companies, because the Gov
eminent rate of one cent pound is too high.
The rate from New York to Boston and Balt-
more is about twenty cents per hundred pounds,
and on shipment of 10000 pounds the publishers
save eighty dollars out of every hundred by not
using the Government service.
In Great Britain a package weighing up to
eleven pounds may be sent anywhere in the
united kingdom for twenty two cents. and a
package weighing two pounds for six cents.
The receipts from this branch of the British
postal service for the year ending in March,
1905, were SIC, 800, 00000 and the number of par
cells carried was l01 900, 900, at an average
cost of about ten and three-fifth cents per par
eel. During the period of sixteen years-from
1890 to 19O6-there was an increase of 1876 per
cent. in the number of parcels carried. and an
increase of 125 per cent in the receipts for carry
ing the same.
This vast system of parcel carriage is said to
have not reduced to any considerable extent
the business of the railroad and express COM
panies and is held to be a new convenient
created forsthe public, the value of which can
hardly be estimated.
In Great Britain. as in the United States, the
railroad and express companies are lined up
against the people, and the British parliament.
like the United States Congress, has members
who have no objection to the railroads getting
the larger portion of the postal receipts, and
cent of the money paid for carrying parcels
sent by mail; and although the business is not
profitable to the Government it has been of
great benefit to the people because it has COM
PEELED the express companies to make reasona-
BILE rates or quit business.
The extreme length of Great Britain is about
600 miles and it is not expected that our Post
Office Department could serve as large terri
tory as the United States at the same rates that
are charged in Great Britain; but by dividing
the United States into three postal districts, each
district could be served at a moderate increase
over the British rates. The first district could
be formed to include the states east of the
Mississippi river. The second and third districts
could be formed including the states west of the
Mississippi river. and the boundary between the
second and third districts made between the
States of North and South Dakota, Nebraska,
Kansas. Oklahoma and Texas on the east, and
Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico
on the west.
All matter now rated as fourth class, as well
as books, Seeds &C., could be carried at the rates
named in the following table without any great
detriment to the express companies or loss to
the Government: