1_d_. Stamps. 2_d_. Stamps.
5th January, 1841, 74,856,960 7,587,960
5th January, 1842, 110,878,344 3,391,800
5th January, 1843, 121,648,080 2,866,080
——— ———
First three years, 307,383,384 13,845,840
321,229,224 stamps, nominal value, £1,396,146
Expense of manufacture and distribution, 42,763
——— ———
Net proceeds, £1,353,382
Average yearly, 451,127
The present cost of Label Stamps is reported, July 16, 1846, thus:
Paper for a million labels, £5 11_s_.
Printing and gumming, 25 --
Salaries, proportion of, 46 10_s_.
Contingencies, poundage, &c. 46 10_s_.
————— ———
Cost per million, £79 --
The entire cost of the Stamped Envelopes is thus stated:
Year Ending. Cost. Sold for. Profit.
5th January, 1841, £4,268 £4,292
5th January, 1842, 5,530 5,470
5th January, 1843, 5,290 5,415
5th January, 1844, 6,190 6,540
5th January, 1845, 6,948 7,261
Total, five years, £28,229 £28,978 £749
The original cost of the machinery, £435, is divided and apportioned on
six years.
The whole number of envelopes issued is 83,694,240.
The present cost per million is £359; proceeds, £371; profits, £12.
Whether it would be advisable for our own post-office to go into the
manufacture of envelopes, may be doubtful. Probably it will be judged that
the Label Stamps would afford all needed convenience, so far as the
government is concerned, and the rest would be left to private enterprise.
From the returns of the actual expense of manufacturing envelopes, £359
per million—about a mill and three quarters apiece, it will be seen that
there is yet room for individual competition among us, to bring down the
current price to the rate of only a reasonable profit.
The third assistant Postmaster-General remarks, in his late report, that
the demand for Label Stamps has not been as great as was anticipated, the
amount sold being but $28,330, which would only pay for about 500,000
stamps. This is indeed a very great falling off from the number purchased
in England, which must be not less than two hundred millions of stamps in
the year. He says that “many important commercial towns have not applied
for them, and in others they are only used in trifling amounts. But it
should be borne in mind, that people are more likely to invest a dollar in
stamps, when they get fifty for their money, than when they only get ten
or twenty. And when purchased, they are likely to use them up a great deal
more freely, when they look at each one as only two cents. With so great a
convenience afforded at so cheap a rate, it is not possible but that the
demand must be immense, and the use abundantly satisfactory to the people
and to the department.”
These stamps would obviate the practical difficulty apprehended in the
administration of the cheap postage system, in those parts of the country
where the use of copper coin is not common; as it will always be easy to
purchase stamps with dimes. I do not believe any persons in this country
would be so fastidious on this point, as to be unwilling to send five
letters for the same money that it now costs to send one.