Britain might very well be converted into a much more efficient
distributing agency by a few simple modifications in its method. At
present, in a large number of country places in Great Britain, a penny
paper costs three-halfpence including the necessary halfpenny for
postage, and the poorer people can afford no paper at all, because the
excellent system in practice abroad of subscribing to any registered
periodical at the post office and having it delivered with the letters
has not been adopted. Government publications and Government maps, which
ought also to be obtainable at a day's notice, through the Post Office
and post free, have to be purchased at present in the most devious way
through a remote agent in London. There is no public reason whatever why
a more intimate connection should not be established between the
Stationery Office and the Post Office."--Ibid.
"It would be the simplest thing in the world to have a complete,
business-like catalogue of Government publications, kept standing in
type and reissued and reprinted quarterly, distributed to every post
office, and by its means one ought to be able to order whatever one
wanted at once, pay for it on the spot, and get it delivered to any
address in Great Britain in the next twenty-four hours."--Ibid.
[310] _Report of Special Committee, House of Assembly, Lower Canada_,
11th February 1832, p. 10.
[311] Sir Francis Freeling replied to the petition. He said the practice
of his Deputy in North America was not illegal, but was based on an Act
of Parliament authorizing certain of his officers to circulate
newspapers by post; that as it had been in existence since the first
establishment of the Post Office in the colony, the petitioners must
have entered into the business with a full knowledge of the charge to
which their publications would be subject if sent by post; there was no
stamp duty in the colonies to give the publishers a right to free
transmission; and, moreover, the amount of the charge was less than the
similar charge in the United States.
[312] "Mr. Howe was very loose, and rarely took any steps to obtain or
enforce the payments of the amounts due to him for the transmission of
Journals through the Post....
"I cannot look upon it as the mere collection of a private source of
emolument to the officer, but I conceive that the Department is
interested in the question not only inasmuch as the amount received from
this source goes in aid of a larger salary to the officer, but that
whenever the time comes that the substitution of a postage rate on
newspapers supersedes the present mode of sending them, a due
enforcement of such rate will be most unfavourably received, if a free
transmission has been previously permitted from the negligence of the
party to whom the collection of the charge was deputed and whose
perquisite it was."--Report of Mr. Page, 1842 (_British Official
Records_).
[313] "It may fairly be viewed in the same light as the amounts annually
granted by the Legislature for roads and bridges, and for the support of
common schools. The mail carriage to all parts of the province secures
us the travelling public conveyance which would not otherwise exist, and
the very large amount of newspapers, etc., which pass through the Post
Office affords strong evidence that the Department may be considered a
branch of our educational system."--Postmaster-General of New Brunswick,
1857.
[314] "Already they found a tax proposed on every poor man who took a
newspaper for the information of his family; a stamp tax, an impost
unknown in the Maritime Provinces, and one which had cost England half
this continent."--Mr. Macdonald in Canadian House of Commons, 12th
December 1867 (_Ottawa Times_).
[315] Sir John A. MacDonald in Canadian House of Commons, 20th December
1867, ibid.
[316] "If ever there was a time when it was necessary for the interests
of the whole Dominion that just the sort of information which newspapers
conveyed should be disseminated through all the Provinces, it was
now."--Hon. Dr. Tupper in Canadian House of Commons, 20th December 1867
(_Ottawa Times_).
[317] Mr. Savary in Canadian House of Commons, 20th December 1867
(ibid.).
[318] Hon. Mr. Mackenzie in Canadian House of Commons, _Parl. Debates,
Canada_ (_Commons_), 22nd February 1875.
[319] "There was good reason for the enactment of the old law that made
the rate for the carriage of newspapers a cent a pound, and there never
was even a semblance of sense or reason or any request for the repeal of
that law. The truth is that its repeal was a mere whim of a gentleman of
the Senate, who, anxious to pose in the niche of personal popularity,
jollied through Parliament a measure that has cost this country in
postal rates millions of dollars, creating a big deficit in the spending
department, which has stood in the way of reform every time a reform was
proposed."--Mr. Ross Robertson, _Parl. Debates, Canada_ (_Commons_),
13th May 1898.
[320] See _Parl. Debates, Canada_ (_Commons_), 11th July 1900.
[321] The following remarks by Sir Charles Tupper in the Dominion House
of Commons, though made at a somewhat later date, will illustrate this.
He said: "There is abundant evidence that manhood suffrage in the
Dominion is a far higher franchise than manhood suffrage in Great
Britain, for the reason that there are tens of thousands of electors in
the United Kingdom who go to the polls without having the remotest idea
not only of public questions before the country, but, if their lives
depended on it, they could not state who is the Prime Minister of Great
Britain to-day. I give that as an indication of the great advance the
people of Canada have made in intelligence; and the thorough knowledge
which the mass of the people here have in respect of the political
issues, and all other questions of that kind, as well as general
information, rests largely on the fact that newspapers have so largely
increased in circulation until they now reach almost every individual in
the country."--Sir Charles Tupper, _Parl. Debates, Canada_ (_Commons_),
13th May 1898.
[322] In Great Britain the figures are in very different proportion.
While the letters are 3,500,000,000, the newspapers are only some
200,000,000. The circumstances of the two countries are in such contrast
that the figures afford no basis for argument as regards the relative
postage rates: but they illustrate very effectively a fundamental
difference in the general character of the two postal services. In Great
Britain the number of separate newspaper mails is extremely small
proportionately to the number of letter mails. In Canada the proportions
are almost reversed. The postmen on delivery in Great Britain carry
their letters and packets in a light canvas bag, and the number of
newspapers taken out by any one postman is quite small (the proportion
is about one newspaper to twenty-five packets of other description). In
Canada the letter-carriers are weighted with newspapers, carried either
strapped in a bundle or stuck in a satchel which is full to overflowing.
In effect, the general practical arrangements in Canada must be made
largely with a view to the handling of vast quantities of newspapers,
while in Great Britain the arrangements are in general based on letter
traffic, and, except at the largest offices, the arrangements for
newspapers are incidental. Letters, however, receive first consideration
in Canada, and the discrimination in their favour against the newspaper
matter, in point of promptness of handling, is carried to much greater
lengths than in Great Britain.
[323] Cf. _supra_, p. 57.
[324] "I trust that after the reimposition of postage on newspapers has
been fairly in working order, we shall then have the Post Office a
self-sustaining department."--Sir William Mulock, Postmaster-General,
_Parl. Debates, Canada_ (_Commons_), 1st April 1898.
[325] Sir William Mulock, _Parl. Debates, Canada_ (_Commons_), 1st April
1898, col. 2915.
[326] "Hon. gentlemen are entirely in error in assuming that the length
of the journey does not make extra cost. It lays the foundation for
extra claims by railways, and there is in the department at present, on
the part of practically all the railways in Canada, application for
increased payment. It is quite impossible to treat newspaper postage in
the same way as letter postage."--Sir William Mulock, ibid., 11th July
1900.
[327] "This new Bill is little else than a special tax and handicap on
certain Montreal newspapers, which are the only ones which have the bulk
of their circulation outside of their own province. We have always
favoured newspaper postage, but we are not favourable to its being
collected off a few papers, and thus making them pay for the carriage of
their own mails."--Mr. Foster, _Parl. Debates, Canada_ (_Commons_), 10th
July 1900.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier made some interesting observations. He said: "A
newspaper is merchandise, a letter is not. A letter simply conveys to
somebody the views and thoughts of another. But newspapers are
merchandise, and the publisher of a newspaper a manufacturer of
merchandise which he sells. Now, I do not see any reason why this class
of merchandise should not pay freight for its transportation as well as
any other class of merchandise."--In Canadian House of Commons, 10th
July 1900.
[328] Sir William Mulock, ibid., 11th July 1900.
[329] Ibid., 3rd July 1903.
[330] Ibid., 25th January 1905.
[331] "The growth of the Post Office from this humble beginning
solidified the American Colonies and made independence possible."--_The
American Post Office_, by Nathan B. Williams. Reprinted as Senate
Document No. 542 of the 61st Congress, 2nd Sess., p. 5.
[332] E.g., "Mr. Franklin has in particular the great Advantage of
circulating his Papers free, and receiving intelligence, which he may
make the best or worst Use of in the present Situation of
Affairs."--Minutes of Pennsylvania Council, 21st March 1757.
The Council recommended that the Postmaster be commanded to be extremely
cautious "to prevent the publication of improper intelligence," and that
the Governor should be authorized to exercise a censorship on the
publication of news.
[333] It was in point of fact due to his action in submitting to the
Assembly of Pennsylvania English official letters addressed from the
Governor of the colony which had come into his hands.
[334] See _supra_, pp. 64-5.
[335] "To take it (the franking privilege) away would be levelling a
deadly stroke at the liberty of the Press; the information conveyed by
franks may be considered as the vital juices, and the channels of the
Post Office as the veins; and if these are stopped, the body must be
destroyed; it is treading on dangerous ground to take any measures that
may stop the channels of public information.... It is the duty of the
members to dispense the newspapers among those people who cannot,
perhaps, otherwise obtain them, under the protection of franks.... The
establishment of the Post Office is agreed to be for no other purpose
than the conveyance of information into every part of the
Union."--_Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States_,
16th December 1791 (pub. Washington, 1849).
[336] "The poisonous sentiments of the cities, concentrated in their
papers, with all the aggravation of such a moral and political cesspool,
will invade the simple, pure, conservative atmosphere of the country,
and meeting with no antidote in a rural Press, will contaminate and
ultimately destroy that purity of sentiment and of purpose which is the
only true conservatism. Fourierism, agrarianism, socialism, and every
other ism, political, moral, and religious, grow in that rank and
festering soil.... Relieve them (the country papers) from the burden of
postage and they can successfully compete with the city publishers.
Reduce the rate of postage on newspapers and pamphlets, and you diffuse
light and knowledge through the land."--Mr. Venables in House of
Representatives, 18th December 1850 (_Congressional Globe_).
[337] I.e. odd packets posted by members of the public, as against the
regular bulk postings of publishers.
[338] _Report of Postmaster-General_, 1892, p. 68.
[339] "The law cannot be so construed as to permit such an abuse--an
abuse that, while operating to load down the mails with immense masses
of stuff of insufficient value to command cash-paying subscribers to any
extent, would be a wrong to every business institution which issues its
advertising circulars and other matter in an undisguised manner and
therefore pays the lawful rate of postage on them."--Ibid., p. 72.
[340] "The most urgent need of the postal service is the rectification
of the enormous wrongs which have grown up in the perversion and abuse
of the privilege accorded by law to second-class matter. This reform is
paramount to all others.... For this costly abuse, which drags on the
Department and weighs down the service, trammels its power and means of
effective advancement in every direction."--Ibid., 1899, pp. 4 and 5.
In 1900 it was stated that the whole cost of the extension of the rural
free delivery service could be met from the saving which would result
from the elimination of the second-class mail abuses.--Ibid., 1900, p.
13.
In 1901 it was described as "the one great overshadowing evil of the
service, because it underlies and overtops all other reform and
advance."--Ibid., 1901, p. 4.
[341] There had been, under an Act of 26th June 1906, a weighing of
second-class matter from 1st July to 31st December 1906.
[342] _Report of Postal Commission on Second-class Mail Matter_, 1907.
Known as the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, from the names of two of its
members.
[343] The actual statistics to be obtained were defined thus:--
"The Postmaster-General shall cause a record to be kept from July first
to December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and seven, inclusive, of the
weight in pounds, respectively, of first-class, second-class, free,
paid-at-the-pound-rate, and transient, third-class, and fourth-class
matter and all franked and penalty matter and the equipment carried in
connection therewith.
"For thirty days during such period he shall require a record to be kept
of the weight of each of the classes above specified despatched from
such post-offices as he shall determine to be representative for the
purpose and have computed thereon, in the most practicable way, the
average haul of the mail of the different classes and sub-classes as
hereinbefore set out. For seven days during such period he shall cause a
record to be kept of the revenue received from each of the classes and
sub-classes of mail matter hereinbefore specified and a count of the
number of pieces of each class and sub-class, showing also for the first
class the number of letters, postal cards, and other matter separately,
and for thirty consecutive days during such period he shall cause a
record to be kept for the purpose of ascertaining the average load of
railway post-office cars other than storage cars, the average load of
storage cars, and the average load in compartment cars.
"Such record shall be reported to Congress by May first, nineteen
hundred and eight, and the sum of three hundred thousand dollars, or so
much thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any
money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to cover the expense
of such weighing and counting and the recording and compilation of the
information so acquired, and the rent of necessary rooms in the city of
Washington, and the same shall be immediately available."--Statute of
2nd March 1907.
[344] _Special Weighing of the Mails_, 1907. Document 910, 60th
Congress.
[345] _Hearings before Committee on Post Office and Post Roads_ (_House
of Representatives_), January-February 1910.
[346] _Report of Commission on Second-class Mail Matter._ Appendix to
Message of President of 22nd February 1912, pp. 137-8.
[347] Ibid., p. 129.
[348] "The historic policy of encouraging by low postal rates the
dissemination of current intelligence, and the extent to which it has
proved successful, should not be overlooked."--Ibid., p. 143.
[349] "If the Republic of our patriotic love is to live and our people
preserve their liberties, the sheet-anchor of their salvation is a free,
independent, untrammelled and fearless Press, and we believe that to
maintain this happy condition publishers must not be subjected to any
arbitrary authority that claims and exercises the power to destroy by
closing the mails against them without the right to appeal to the
courts, a right that is held sacred by every citizen, however humble,
whenever and wherever his opportunity to earn a livelihood in an
honourable business is called in question or denied him."--Evidence of
Mr. Wilmer Atkinson of Philadelphia, Pa., _Report of Commission on
Second-class Mail Matter_, 1906, p. 412.
[350] "Publishers are now sometimes kept on the anxious seat for months
awaiting decisions which may wreck their businesses."--Evidence of Mr.
Madden, Third Assistant Postmaster-General.--Ibid., p. 89.
[351] "There is no 'subsidy' at all, as claimed by the foolish, but
simply that the lawmakers of the greatest Government on earth have been
wise enough to see to it that the people shall have periodical
literature within easy reach, and with as little expense as
possible."--Evidence of Wilmer Atkinson, ibid., p. 441.
[352] "Who knows but that the onerous restrictions of the department
have some connection with the efforts of the express companies to have
second-class mail rates increased, and by both means drive the
publishers of the country to employing the express companies to carry
their publications? Such would not be beyond the craftiness of these
skilled farmers in the field of legislation."--Nathan B. Williams, _The
American Post Office_, 1910; Document 542, 61st Congress, 2nd Session,
p. 40.
[353] "Yet we publish more periodicals than Germany, France, Russia,
Great Britain, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland aggregated, and you may
then add all the other countries of Europe, then Canada and Mexico. Then
add all the Central American States, and the South American States, and
the African Colonies--North, South, East, and West. You must still add
Australia, and Hindoostan, and all other Asiatic countries, including
Japan and China, and even then you haven't reached the end or the story.
You then have only 40 per cent. of the total against our 60."--C. W.
Burrows, _One Cent Postage_, etc., Cleveland, Ohio, 1911, p. 11.
[354] "The great decrease in all the more serious departments of
literature, as well as in some of the lighter ones, is a curious and
unexplainable condition of our book production. Scientific and
philosophical writings are as conspicuous through their absence as are
the simply amusing books."--_Publishers' Weekly_ (New York), 30th
January 1904.
[355] Message to Congress, 22nd February 1912.
[356] "No lobby ever sent to Washington in furtherance of the most
corrupt legislation has ever been more persistent or dealt less fairly
with both legislators and public than the lobby that has worked for the
retention of the second-class mail graft."--C. W. Burrows, _One Cent
Postage_, etc., Cleveland, Ohio, 1911, p. 4.
[357] "Je vois que le prix du port des journaux fera d'un
vingt-quatri[e']me du prix des lettres. Le prix n'est sans doute pas
suffisant pour les frais de la poste, et je ne crois pas que l'envoi des
journaux doive [^e]tre [a'] la charge de la nation."--M. Biozat,
Assembl['e]e Nationale, 17 ao[^u]t 1791 (_Le Moniteur Universel_).
[358] "Si vous examinez set objet sous un point de vue fiscal, je vous
dirai qu'en augmentant le tarif, vous diminuez le produit, en rendant la
circulation de plusieurs feuilles impossible. Le plus l['e]ger
surhaussement de taxe priverait de tout b['e]n['e]fice les autres des
productions p['e]riodiques les plus utiles, telles que les journaux
d'agriculture, de physique, d'histoire naturelle, de m['e]decine, etc.,
qui, par leur nature, ne sont pas susceptibles d'avoir un grand nombre
de souscripteurs. Et les journaux que l'on aurait peut-[^e]tre en vue
d'['e]carter sous le poids d'un imp[^o]t on['e]reux seraient
pr['e]cis['e]ment ceux que l'avide curiosit['e] du public ferait
r['e]sister [a'] la surtaxe. Personne d'ailleurs ne r['e]voquera ne
doute que, de tous les commerces, celui des id['e]es soit le plus
pr['e]cieux, et je crois que vous devez le favoriser de toutes les
mani[e']res."--M. Larochefoucault, Assembl['e]e Nationale, 17 ao[^u]t
1791 (ibid.).
[359] The increase during the Revolutionary period was nevertheless
considerable. Before the Revolution the cost of distributing 60,000
prospectuses by post was 200 livres. Under the rates then in operation
it would be 3,000 livres, and under the new rates then (1796) proposed,
7,500 livres. Before the Revolution a volume could be sent from one end
of France to the other for 12 sous.--A. Belloc, _Les Postes francaises_,
Paris, 1886, p. 353.
[360] "Le conseil des Cinq-Cents, consid['e]rant qu'il importe de
faciliter la circulation des ouvrages p['e]riodiques, brochures,
catalogues, et prospectus tant pour encourager la libre communication
des pens['e]es entre les citoyens de la R['e]publique que pour augmenter
le total du revenu public...."--_Proclamation_, 1796.
[361] Law of 15th March 1827.
[362] Law of 16th July 1850.
[363] There was also at this time a tax on books.
[364] M. Rouher, Assembl['e]e Nationale, 21 mars 1850 (_Le Moniteur
Universel_).
[365] Decree of 17th February 1852.
[366] The political Press was somewhat strictly controlled. The law of
1814 on the liberty of the Press, which was continued by the Press law
of the 27th June 1849, imposed on every printer the obligation to
deposit with the Procurator Imperial every article treating of political
matters or social economy twenty-four hours before publication, under
penalty of a fine of 100 to 500 fr. A decree of 1852 subjected political
publications to a stamp duty.
[367] "Les journaux n'['e]tant plus dangereux et ne pouvant plus faire
que du bien, l'honorable membre e[^u]t d['e]sir['e] qu'une l['e]g[e']re
r['e]duction des droits de poste leur perm[^i]t d'acqu['e]rir une
existence plus s[^u]r, plus ind['e]pendante, afin qu'on p[^u]t les
retrouver fid[e']les et d['e]vou['e]s, si la France avait encore des
jours difficiles [a'] traverser. Nul n'a oubli['e], en effet,
l'admirable attitude de la Presse d['e]partmentale au milieu des
['e]v['e]nements de 1848, son empressement [a'] se rallier [a'] la cause
du Pr['e]sident de la R['e]publique, le courage que ses r['e]dacteurs
ont montr['e] pour la d['e]fense de l'ordre, courage que quelques-un on
pay['e] de leur vie.
"Telles sont les consid['e]rations d'['e]quit['e] et de politique qui
avaient fait r['e]clamer en faveur de la Presse d['e]partmentale une
r['e]duction de taxe. Tout ce que la commission a pu obtenir, c'est
qu'il n'y aura pas d'aggravation de taxe lorsque le num['e]ros
circuleront dans les d['e]partments limitrophes. Rien ou [a'] peu
pr[e']s rien ne sera done chang['e] aux charges que les journaux de
province ont support['e]es jusqu'[a'] ce jour."--M. Paul Dupont, Chambra
des D['e]put['e]s, 31 mai 1856 (_Le Moniteur Universal_).
[368] Motif du loi, cited A. Belloc, op. cit., p. 542.
[369] Ibid., p. 545.
[370] Law of 29th April.
[371] "La poste perd sur le transport des journaux et des imprim['e]s.
"Pour l'ann['e]e 1889, M. Jaccottey (_Trait['e] de l['e]gislation et
d'exploitation postales_, p. 329) calculait que le co[^u]t,
c'est-[a']-dire la d['e]pense moyennement, fait pour un objet quelconque
de correspondance, n'avait pas ['e]t['e] sup['e]rieur [a'] 0 fr. 055. Il
fixait de m[^e]me le produit moyen des imprim['e]s, par unit['e], [a'] O
fr. 023, et il ['e]valuait la perte du Tr['e]sor [a'] 25 millions....
"Le nombre des Imprim['e]s de toute cat['e]gorie ['e]tait [a'] cette
['e]poque de 800 millions....
"Or, il y a eu, en 1895, dans la circulation int['e]rieure:--
"514,957,761 journaux ayant rapport['e] 8,378,873 fr. soit, par
unit['e], 1 centime 62, 472,202,885 imprim['e]s de toute nature, dont
82,597,172 sou enveloppes, avec un produit total de 13,791,025 ou par
unit['e] 2 centimes 92. Pour ces 987,160,646 journaux, p['e]riodiques,
imprim['e]s de toute cat['e]gorie, circulent [a'] prix r['e]duit, la
recette total a ['e]t['e] de 22,169,975 fr. et le produit moyen de 2
centimes 245.