Milford chronicle., 1962-05-04
FERTILE FIELD

rates (applied to newspapers and maga-
zines) have increased 80 per cent. A car
rent proposal would send chem up again,
by something like SO per cent. >
The result, in the view of Editor and
Publisher: Magazines will feel the brunt
of it in proportion to their size. In the
newspaper business dt will be the small
dailies and weeklies that will suffer. It will
ultimately mean the suspension Of many
Marginal publications that are just making
ends meet"
One trouble seems to be a comparatively
newo idea that the Post Office should be
treated as a business, paying its own way in
all particulars. That simply isn't in the
cards. The Post Office performs many pub
lie services which are0 inevitably losers
such as the maintenance of small, but need
ed post office outlets and rural routes. To
quote Editor and Publisher again, .'These
are services performed for the people
The cost of fulfilling that obligation of ser
vice through non-proftable offices, routes
and services, should not be Charged to The
users of the mail"
This is the traditional view of the Post
Office function, held throughout othe nation S
life. But there is an exceptions function
which is relatively new, and which In no
way meets the standards of public service,
education, and enlightenment of the people.
That IS parcel post, purely commercial un-
dertaking, which competes directly with
private parcel carriers on the national,
state, and local levels Parcel post should
pay its own way in every respect, the indi-
rect as well cas the direct costs included.
That is something it has rarely if ever done.
Here is aofertile and natural field for MAX
4ng a dent in the Post Office deficit.
&Se<$
HOW MUCH is GASOLINE WORTH?
Who or what determines the price you
pay for gasoline?
In manner of speaking, you-the user
determine it.
a That doesn't 9neaf, Of course, that you
can dIive blithely into a service station and
tell the operator just what you'll pay for a
tankful and expect him to agree. But it
works like this:
% Petroleum refining is known as joint
cost operation. When crude is broken down
it produces gasOlfne-but it also produces
fuel oil and various other products. No one
can determine just what the difference in
cost is between one and another The stu
alton is analogous to meat packer WhO pro-
cesses a pound of T-bone steak and pound
of talloW from the same steer. 1t costs,
roughly, as much to process the one as the
other But that certainly doesn't mean that
the per-pound cost of T-bones and tallow
could or should be the same.
So it is with oil products. Gasoline COM
mands higher price than other yields from
the crude. And the reason is that each oil
product is, and must be, priced in a way
it. That value is established by their pur-
chases.
Finally a basic consumer protection IS
found in the makeup of the oil industry.
The number of competing suppliers is far
greater than in other comparable enter
prises There are 100000 service stations,
all looking for customer favor. And gaso-
line is commodity which is difficult and
expensive to store, so all concerned have to
seek immediate outlets. The result iso that
it is a frst-class value. More than two
thirds Of the price charged for it at your
service station is accounted for by state
and federal sales taxes which have caused
the chief price increases.
Based on the record of gasoline prices
and taxes, oil companies are justified in
answering critics with righteous ando per-
suasive9 indignation.
TWO GREAT STEPS .
President Kennedy's transportation mes
sage to Congress is based on the sound
premise that the public interest iso best
served when government policy favors no
one.
In the Presidents words, his program
:" means equality Of opportunity for all
forms of transportation and their users
and undue preference to none. 1t means a
greater reliance on the forces Of competition
and less reliance on the restraints Of regu-
lation. And it means that. to che extent
possible, the users of transportation ser
vices should bear the full costs Of The ser
vices they use, whether those services are
provided privately or publicly
One important effect of the program
would be to free the railroads from set of
long-obsolete regulations which have brought
this basic industry into deep and dark finan-
: cial waters Specifically, certain railroad
trsffic-including bulk commodities and