Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1911-10-26
erson County, West Virginia, Thursday October 26 1911.
The Parcel-POst. .

President Taft has announced that he
will recommend to Congress next winter
the establishment of parcel-post, and
the Postmaster General has given out a
summary of that part of his annual report
which suggests making beginning on the
rural free delivery routes. There the
plant already in use can be employed for
the delivery of packages now excluded
from the mails on account OF weight and
the high rate of postage.
Both in England and in America the
Post Office Department has the exclusive
right TO transport letters and packages;
but there is vast difference in the way
the right is enforced by the two govern
ments. In America the district messenger
service infringes on the rights Of the Pos
tai Department whenever II is employed
to deliver letters, and the express CON-
panies trespass whenever they handle
letters or mailable packages weighing
four pounds or less. But the government
has not chosen to exercise its right of
monopoly.
In England, ,on the other hand, the Post
Office Department holds fast to its mono
poly. Private persons engaged in dis
trict messenger service or in the trans
portation of mailable packages are so en-
gagged only by govenmentlicense.
The British Post-Office Department
itself does most of this business. On
packages of eleven pounds weight, or
less, the charge is six cents for the first
pound, and a progressive increase with
increasing weight, up to a maximum OF
twenty-five cents. The service is quick
and satisfactory. Merchants in the large
cities frequently use it instead of their
own wagons for delivering small parcels;
and it is not unusal for man to find, when
he reaches home in the evening, that the
purchase he made in London shop in
the afternoon has already been delivered
by the postman.
All the other European countries have
similar parcel-post system; and indeed,
this government has agreements with many
of them by which the needs OF foreigners
and. foreign-born Americans are well
served.
For example, there are about thirty
countries from which parcels OF eleven
pounds or less are delivered here, and to
which parcels OF the same weight may be
mailed here. The rate on such parcels
when mailed here is twelve cents a pound
so that man may send four pound
package from San Francisco to London
for forty eight cents. If he wished 10
send the same package from Chicago TO
Evenston, Illinois, it would cost him six
tyf our cents.
This is the situation which the President
desires TO improve. The intention is first
to inceaSe The limit Of weight and to lower
the rate of postage on mail-matter which
originates on rural free delivery routes,
and is TO be delivered only on those routes.
The details of the plan have not been
published, but Mr.. Meyer when he was
Postmaster General, favor minimum
rate of five cents for one-pound pack
age, and maximum rate of twenty five
cents for eleven pounds.
The plan, even if it is at first confined d
exclusively TO the rural routes, as Secre-
tary Meyer intended, is generally regard
ed as merely first step toward the de-
livery of parcels at low rates everywhere
in the country, and this view is doubtless
correct.