The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1911-03-07
THE FIGHT ON POSTAL RATES.

In the contention (Which has been
postponed by the failure of Congress
10 authorize the Postmaster General to
raise certain postal rates.) between
Postmaster General Hitchcock and the
magazines concerning mail charges on
sccond.class matter. We confess that
VIC are entirely unable to sec eye 10
eye with tho Postmaster. General, HIS
contention that second class matter is
responsible for n loss Of OYER 100000.
eco year In the operation of tho pos
tai service il hard to reconcile with
even counting i'm the enormously in
creased expenditures Of the rural free
delivery, was only between $5,00n,o00
and f6,O00.0OO His reckoning that il
costs from seven TO nine cents to han
die n pound OF mail matter is con
fession IF wasteful methods and unbusj
nesslike management. special exam
ination was made by Congress few
years ago with view Of getting At
the actual cost of handling second
class mail matter, with the result that
one cent pound. the present charge.
was found to fairly cover the expense
Of handling that class of matter Sec
ond. the express companies are very
largely used at present in transporta
tion of newspapers and magazines
There is little. if any. difference in the
cost of sending packages Of magazines,
newspapers, and other printed matter
hy express as compared with sending
the same by mail But, If it is true
that IL costs the postal service seven
to nine cents per pound to handle this
kind of matter. where The express
companies can and do handle it at n
profit at ono cent per pound, there
must be something very wrong indeed
in the post office way Of doing busi
ness. Third Canada with greater dis
tances 10 transport its mail and with |
even less charge than our post office
cSacts for second class matter. shows
a profit in its postal service. But if
Canada, with its greater distances to
transport its mails, with more difficult |
and hazardous routes Of conveyance.
and with thinner population. can
make a profit at lower postal charge
than we make. then there is an even
worse case of comparative incompc. |
tence made against our postal manage
ment than is shown when compared |
with the work of express companies.
The rural mail delivery service is
being extended all the time. confessed |
" at n large loss; but the Postmaster.
General does not use this fact in his
search for a scapegoat for the unbusi-
nesslikc methods Of his Department |
If he is sincere, why does he not charge 1
the rural delivery service, which con
fessedly costs many more times than
postal deficit.
Again. it is urged by experts that
the post office deficit can be charged |
entirely to the transportation of so
much weight of mail bags. Fifty
one per cent is reckoned as the weight !
of conveyance of the mail bags a com
pared with fortynine per cent of actual
mail carried in them. This is an cnor !
nous waste, which the post-office de-
partmcnt should free itself from and
devise some other means Of segregat-
ing the mails. 1t often happens that
a big, heavy mail bag has but few
mail packages in it, the bag itself rep.
resentng many times the weight of the
mail in it.
Then again, there is an immense loss
caused by the free carriage Of Con
gressional and Departmental mail The
q mount of this cannnf hn slntnd hnf