Arizona republican., 1912-07-15


 less than 100 pounds will bear the same amount of terminal expense. The charges of the express com panies, now in many instances, are the same for 50 pounds as for 100 pounds, between the same points; and in some instances they are as much for 30 pounds as for 100 pounds. Un- der such a system the householder is compelled to pay as much for 10 pound package as a dealer would pay for a 25 pound package, and three or four times as much as the dealer vould pay for 10 pounds included in a 100 pound shipment.
 Commissioner Lane expressed the belief that the system proposed will rake practicable the opening Of di- rect avenues of trade between the farm and the city household. He. likewise, is of opinion that while the reduction of the rates on the lighter weight parcels. will average between 20 and 30 per cent the express com panies themselves will be the ben cficiaries of largely increased busi- ness in the handling of small par celS
 The report shows that more than BOG, 900 parcels are handled an nually by the express companies in the United States The average house. hold of five persons in this country either sends or receives by express, in the course Of a year. from to h packages The average weight of these packages is 34 pounds: the aV- craze express charge is 50 cents: and the average haul is 200 miles It appears that a very small proportion of the express traffic of the country results from district shipments from the farm to the city home
 Commissioner Lane carried his in vestigations into the express business of several European countries. In those countries where the parcels post system has developed traffic in small packages, the lighter weight packages were found to predominate It was indicated that in foreign countries, the householder received few parcels weighing more than 10 pounds per shipment. The cOmmis sioner believes that in the United States the express traffic in food commodities is chiefly between the i producer and the commission mer- chant. and that the rates appear to 1 have been constructed with view 1 to fostering and encouraging the ' growth of that traffic at the expense | of the light package traffic.
 ] The investigators have devoted a year to the constructive work of re- | forming the bases of express rates Of devising simpler and more easily | understood means of stating those rates, and of preparing new rules for the government of carriers of express i traffic.
 Of foremost importance is the re- 1 quirement that all of the express 1 companies shall join in the establish nent of through routes by the quick 1 est lines of communication between 1 all express offices and shall publish 1 through rates to apply between those points. The same provision gives the shipper the right to name the
 route by which his property shall be 1 carried It is believed by Commls- sioner Lane that these provisions will effect an improvement in the service and great economy to the carriers. which now haul shipments l oftentimes by circuitous routes to avoid turning them over to con- meeting line
 The most radical departure from existing methods lies in that adopted of applying the new rates. In the | United States there are 39,OO0 eN- press stations, To name rates from each of these to every other one requires the statement of more than l 500 OOO.O0 different rates. These schedules now occupy several nun dred volumes of from 200 to 5Ol | rages each in the tariff department
 of the commission. The rates them
 selves are intricate and involved anc
 il requires authority to determine the
 lawful rate between any two points
 The problem of reducing this enor- nous volume of rate schedules to genuinely practicable compass is one
 tC which Commissioner Lane devoted most serious attention. lie ha' evolved d method whereby the rates from any point in the United States
 to all other points may be printed oI
 4 single sheet of card about one
 fourth of the size of a single news , paper page.
 - The IlGSl SLtD III bilC NoiiN0NAii'i''N , of the plan was the division or th United States into blocks, each ap
 proximately 50 miles square. Rate are proposed between each or thes blocks, treating all cities and toWn
 within each block as common points ! Each of these blocks is one degre
 of longitude in length and one degre
 of latitude in width. To every eX
 press station within each of thes blocks the rate is the same from an e other given block. Thus the rate
 stated as between blocks rather tha
 as between cities Supplementln
 this block system of making rate o which constitute each block a zoh . of origin or of destination the rate
 are stated for each package Welgh
 ing from one to 100 pounds. The eN d press companies will be required f publish a directory of express sta
 | tions which will show the block mum f. Der within which each station IS 10 = cated. and at each station there WI r be filed a single sheet tariff whlc o will give the rate from that statlo