New Britain herald., 1930-10-28
FEWER POSTAL SUBSIDIES WOULD END DEFICITS

WOULD END DEFICITS Postmaster General Brown seems intent upon pushing his unpopular idea of increasing the first class, or letter, mail rates from to ? F cents. Such insistence deserves analysis although there is very slight chance indeed that Congress would consent to such a method of changing the deficit of $oO,OO0.000 in the postal service last year to a possible profit Nothing would so effectively adver- tise the national Administration as a tax gatherer in order to provide funds for the various dubious subsidies that the postal department has been made to provide during the Hoover Administration.
 According to the bill signed last June the postal department for the first time will be forced to submit an annual report showing the amounts which it would have col lected had free or reduced rate mat ter been carried at normal rates; also the excess cost of aircraft serv- ice over the revenues from airmail; and also the excess cost of carrying ocean mail at mileage rates over the cost if such mail were carried on poundage basis.
 Until such report is forthcom- ing-and it turns out to be a frank and honest statement of the condi- tions-there is no need to talk about the public paying 21la cents to mail letter.
 Consider the postal appropriations for 1881. These carried items total ling S29,500,000 for the transport of foreign mails Gncluding the mer- chant marine subsidy under the Jones' White acD, S6,C00,OO0 for the development of foreign air mail service, and s15,O00,OO0 for domes- tic air mail service. All of these are in the nature of subsidies, 10 make it possible for the enterprising mer- chant marine and air mail companies to operate with the help of the gov must be given, should not be loaded upon the cost of operating the mail ,service they should be regarded for what they are-gifts from the pub lie treasury to develop" the mer- chant marine and the air mail both foreign and domestic.
 Then there was the enactment of the Watrcs bill. which abandoned the poundage rate basis for payment of air mail companies in favor of the, mileage basis. The new method is a system Of contracts for fixed amounts of airplane space to be paid on a mileage basis mot exceed ing $1.25 d mile" Contracts for smaller amounts of space on estab- lishcd passenger air lines to cost not over 40 cents a mile were also authorized. Postmaster General Brown himself, although favoring the change. admitted the new sys- tenn would increase the existing ST. 100000 annual deficit in air mail operations to s9O00,0O0.
 Yet President Hoover had declar- cd in July, 1929, that "the rapidly mounting postal deficit must be re- duced;" that the postal establish ment must be operated "as a self sustaining business organization and that the cost of the service should be borne "by the persons who receive it's benefits and not by the taxpayers"
 If the President is sincere-and he probably is why did he sign the subsidy measures which have exact ly the opposite effect?
 If the costs of the service are to be borne by those who receive the benefits, then why should there be subsidies to the numerous steamship concerns which refuse 10 go into the shipping business until and unless they have a government mail con- tract to run their lines?
 If the postal department is to be run as a "busincss organization there is no reason at all why it should be made the goat for air mail and ocean mail subsidies of this na- ture. They amount to an appreciable percentage of the deficit; their elimination would reduce the deficit if not eliminate it entirely, especial ly if other vastcful practices were eliminated as well.
 The cost Of franked mail, though considerable, amounts 10 little when compared with these subsidies; and it is notable that the deficits did not run into the present aston ishing totals until the era of subsi- dizng through the postal service was inauguratcd.
 One other leak that has increased expenses notably is in process of being eliminated, although that will require several years. The practice of leasing postal quarters through