Our Circumstances As Regards The Post-Office Have Had In
Them Less Of Difficulties Than Theirs.
But it has arisen in great
part from better management; and in nothing is their deficiency so
conspicuous as in the absence of a free delivery for their letters.
In order that the advantages of the post-office should reach all
persons, the delivery of letters should extend not only to towns,
but to the country also. In France all letters are delivered free.
However remote may be the position of a house or cottage, it is not
too remote for the postman. With us all letters are not delivered,
but the exceptions refer to distant solitary houses and to
localities which are almost without correspondence. But in the
United States there is no free delivery, and there is no delivery at
all except in the large cities. In small towns, in villages, even
in the suburbs of the largest cities, no such accommodation is
given. Whatever may be the distance, people expecting letters must
send for them to the post-office; and they who do not expect them,
leave their letters uncalled for. Brother Jonathan goes out to fish
in these especial waters with a very large net. The little fish
which are profitable slip through; but the big fish, which are by no
means profitable, are caught - often at an expense greater than their
value.
There are other smaller sins upon which I could put my finger - and
would do so were I writing an official report upon the subject of
the American post-office. In lieu of doing so, I will endeavor to
explain how much the States office has done in this matter of
affording post-office accommodation, and how great have been the
difficulties in the way of post-office reformers in that country.
In the first place, when we compare ourselves to them we must
remember that we live in a tea-cup, and they in a washing-tub. As
compared with them we inhabit towns which are close to each other.
Our distances, as compared with theirs, are nothing. From London to
Liverpool the line of railway I believe traverses about two hundred
miles, but the mail train which conveys the bags for Liverpool
carries the correspondence of probably four or five millions of
persons. The mail train from New York to Buffalo passes over about
four hundred miles, and on its route leaves not one million. A
comparison of this kind might be made with the same effect between
any of our great internal mail routes and any of theirs.
Consequently the expense of conveyance to them is, per letter, very
much greater than with us, and the American post-office is, as a
matter of necessity, driven to an economy in the use of railways for
the post-office service which we are not called on to practice.
From New York to Chicago is nearly 1000 miles. From New York to St.
Louis is over 1400. From New York to New Orleans is 1600 miles. I
need not say that in England we know nothing of such distances, and
that therefore our task has been comparatively easy. Nevertheless
the States have followed in our track, and have taken advantage of
Sir Rowland's Hill's wise audacity in the reduction of postage with
greater quickness than any other nation but our own. Through all
the States letters pass for three cents over a distance less than
3000 miles. For distances above 3000 miles the rate is ten cents,
or five pence. This increased rate has special reference to the
mails for California, which are carried daily across the whole
continent at a cost to the States government of two hundred thousand
pounds a year.
With us the chief mail trains are legally under the management of
the Postmaster-General. He fixes the hours at which they shall
start and arrive, being of course bound by certain stipulations as
to pace. He can demand trains to run over any line at any hour, and
can in this way secure the punctuality of mail transportation. Of
course such interference on the part of a government official in the
working of a railway is attended with a very heavy expense to the
government. Though the British post-office can demand the use of
trains at any hour, and as regards those trains can make the
dispatch of mails paramount to all other matters, the British post-
office cannot fix the price to be paid for such work. This is
generally done by arbitration, and of course for such services the
payment is very high. No such practice prevails in the States. The
government has no power of using the mail lines as they are used by
our post-office, nor could the expense of such a practice be borne
or nearly borne by the proceeds of letters in the States.
Consequently the post-office is put on a par with ordinary
customers, and such trains are used for mail matter as the directors
of each line may see fit to use for other matter. Hence it occurs
that no offense against the post-office is committed when the
connection between different mail trains is broken. The post-office
takes the best it can get, paying as other customers pay, and
grumbling as other customers grumble when the service rendered falls
short of that which has been promised.
It may, I think, easily be seen that any system, such as ours,
carried across so large a country, would go on increasing in cost at
an enormous ratio. The greater is the distance, the greater is the
difficulty in securing the proper fitting of fast-running trains.
And moreover, it must be remembered that the American lines have
been got up on a very different footing from ours, at an expense per
mile of probably less than a fifth of that laid out on our railways.
Single lines of rail are common, even between great towns with large
traffic.
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