Cheap Postage Part 6

The postage stamps are cancelled, by an obliterating stamp in the office where they are received, so that no postage stamp can ever be used a second time. Each post-office is furnished with a cancel stamp, and an ineffaceable ink for this purpose. There are five different forms of cancel stamps, one used for London letters, deliverable within the London District, one for letters mailed in London for places elsewhere, one for all other places in England and Wales, one for Scotland, and one for Ireland. Thus it is seen at a glance, from what section a letter comes.

Sometimes the stamp denoting the place at which a letter is mailed, is not sufficiently plain. To meet this, and to serve some other conveniences, the cancel stamps have a blank in the centre, in which is inserted the number belonging to that office. Thus the shape tells the district, and the number the office from which each letter comes. The London stamp has a circular blank for letters that are mailed within the London circle, and deliverable also within it, and a diamond-shaped blank for letters going out of London.

The post-offices in each section are all numbered consecutively, and each office is permanently known in all other offices by its number as well as its name. Each office has its number engraved in the blank s.p.a.ce of its cancel stamp, as in the first and last above, so that the place from which the letter comes is known at a glance.

The total number of Label Stamps issued in the year ending

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 compet.i.tion among us, to bring down the current price to the rate of only a reasonable profit.

The third a.s.sistant Postmaster-General remarks, in his late report, that the demand for Label Stamps has not been as great as was antic.i.p.ated, 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.

VII. _New Arrangement of Newspaper Postage._

The principles of cheap postage have been recognized from the beginning of our government, in reference to the postage on newspapers-the charge being regulated, neither by weight nor distance, but, with a single exception, by the rule of simple uniformity. The postage on newspapers is one cent for each paper, within 100 miles, or within the state where printed, and a cent and a half for greater distances. The act of 1844 allowed all newspapers within 30 miles of the place where issued, to go free, but this militated so directly against every principle of equity, that it has been repealed. But cheap postage on newspapers, for the sake of the general diffusion of knowledge of public affairs, has always been the policy of our government. Even during the war of 1812, when it was attempted to raise a revenue by letter postage, the postage on newspapers was not raised. No proposition whatever, to increase the cost, or lessen the facility of the circulation of newspapers by mail, would be sanctioned by the people, under any conceivable exigency of the government.

Yet it has never been stated, to my knowledge, by any administration, that the postage of newspapers was any help to the department, or even that it paid for itself. Many of the unproductive routes, which add so much to the expense, and so little to the income of the department, are demanded chiefly for the facility of getting the newspapers, rather than for letters. We are a nation, of newspaper readers. It is possible, indeed, that the prodigious increase in the number of newspapers circulated by mail, which has taken place within twenty years, and especially within ten years, may have reduced the average cost of each, so that now the newspapers may be productive, or at least remunerative. The Postmaster-General states the postage on newspapers and pamphlets, for the year ending June 30, 1847, at $643,160, which is an increase of $81,018, or 14- per cent. over the preceding year, and an increase over the annual average of the nine preceding years, of $114,181, or 21 per cent.

The newspapers pa.s.sing through the mails annually, are estimated at 55,000,000. In 1843, they were estimated at 43,500,000, of which 7,000,000 were free. If the calculation is made on the whole number, the increase is 20 per cent. in four years. But if, as is probable, the 55,000,000 in 1847 are chargeable papers, the increase is 33- per cent. If anything can make the newspaper postage pay for itself, it will be the multiplication of newspapers, as it is well known that a great reduction of cost of individual articles is produced by the great number required. What fortunes are made by manufacturing cotton cloth, to be sold at six or eight cents per yard; and by making pins and needles, which pa.s.s through so many processes, and yet are sold at such a low rate. Each yard of cloth, each needle, each pin, is subjected to all those several steps, and yet the greatness of the demand creates a vast revenue from profits which are so small upon each individual article as to be incapable of being stated in money; the cheapness of production extending the sale, and the extent of sale favoring the cheapness of production. An establishment like the post-office requires a certain amount of expenditure and labor, to keep the machinery in operation, though the work be but little, not half equal to its capacity, and it can often enlarge its labors and its productiveness, without requiring, by any means, a corresponding increase of expense; and enlarged to a considerable extent, perhaps, without any increase at all. Thus the cost of the British post-office, which was 686,768 in 1839, when the number of letters was only 86,000,000, was increased only to 702,310, but little more than 10 per cent. in the following year, when the number of letters was increased to 170,000,000.

That is, the quant.i.ty of business was doubled, while the expense was only increased one-tenth. And in 1846, when the letters were 322,000,000, or nearly fourfold the former number, the expense was only 1,138,745, an increase of but 65 per cent., and the greater part of this-almost the whole-was for increased facilities given, and not owing to the increased number of letters. Had the cost kept pace with the increase of business, it would have been, in 1847, nearly 3,000,000 sterling.

There is one difficulty, however, in the case of newspapers, arising from their weight. The Postmaster-General says, in his last report: "The weight and bulk of the mails, which add so greatly to the cost of transportation, and impede the progress of the mail, are attributable to the ma.s.s of printed matter daily forwarded from the princ.i.p.al cities of the Union to every part of the country." Some of these newspapers, he says, weigh over two and a half ounces each. For more than twenty years, the weight of newspapers has been a cause of complaint in the department, for which no remedy has yet been devised, neither has any man been bold enough to propose to exclude them from the mails. At one time, rules were made, allowing mail carriers to leave the newspaper bags, to be carried along at another time. But this produced too serious a dissatisfaction to be continued. The newspapers must go, and they must go with the letters, for people are quite as sensitive at the delay of their newspapers as at the delay of their letters. Seven or eight years ago, there was a clamor at the weight of certain mammoth sheets, as the New World and the Brother Jonathan, weighing each from a quarter to half a pound. But this extravagant folly of publishers has in a great measure cured itself, and the grievance has ceased. The law of 1845 undertook to make a discrimination against papers of exorbitant size, by charging extra postage on all that were larger than 1900 square inches. I cannot learn that any papers are taxed at this extra rate, and I venture to predict that, whenever the public convenience shall be found to require newspapers of a larger size than 1900 inches, the postage rule will have to be altered to meet the public demand. The people have so learned the benefits of uniformity and cheapness of postage on newspapers, that they will never relinquish it.

In Great Britain no difference is made among papers on account of their weight, although their paper is almost twice as heavy as ours. And even when a supplementary sheet is issued, the whole goes as one newspaper, covered by one stamp. I have a copy of the London Herald, with three supplements, the whole weighing half a pound, which pa.s.sed free in the mail, with only the princ.i.p.al sheet stamped. And the whole comes by the steamer's mail, the postage prepaid by a single 2_d_. stamp. In that country, however, it is not compulsory to send newspapers or supplements by mail, and a very large proportion are not sent in that way, but for convenience by carriers. Their method of circulating newspapers, by sale instead of yearly subscription, has led to a difference in this respect. I believe there is no restriction upon the carriage of newspaper packages out of the mail, by the same contractors, and the same carriages that convey the mails. It is probable that the interests of the department would be promoted, rather than injured, by such a rule, liberally interpreted, in this country.

Twenty years ago, when our mails were all carried in coaches drawn by horses, there were some routes on which the weight of the newspaper mails was a serious inc.u.mbrance. But at present, so great has been the extension of steam power, that I question if there is a single route to which the number of newspapers sent would be a burden, unless, perhaps, it may be the route by the National Road, from c.u.mberland to Columbus.

So great are the advantages of uniformity of rate, in facilitating the administration of the post-office, that there would be a greater loss than gain in attempting to introduce any rule of graduation in the postage of newspapers. It is easily seen that the difference of distance is no ground for such graduation, for the same reasons which are conclusive in regard to letters. And as to the difference of weight, if you deduct from the one cent postage what it costs to receive and mail and deliver each paper, and to keep the accounts and make the returns, the difference in the actual expense is too small to be made of any practical account, between a newspaper weighing two ounces and one weighing half an ounce. The Journal of Commerce and papers of that size weigh less than two ounces. And the number of newspapers printed on a sheet weighing over two ounces, is too small to be of any account.

The only point respecting the postage on newspapers, on which the Cheap Postage a.s.sociation are inflexibly fixed, is that the postage shall be uniform, irrespective of distance, and not exceed one cent per paper, prepaid. If not prepaid, the postage is to be doubled.

It is supposed that a practical rule will obtain, like that which now prevails, of allowing regular subscribers to pay their postage quarterly in advance, at the office where they receive their papers. Only, the rule of prepayment will be enforced, because double postage is to be exacted in all cases where there is not actual prepayment.

It will follow that all occasional papers will pay two cents postage, that is the same as a letter, unless the postage is prepaid by the sender, at the office where the paper is mailed.

In Great Britain, newspapers are required to be stamped at the Stamp Office, for which they pay 1_d_. each sheet. And all such stamped papers are carried in the mails postage free. Whatever be their date, or how many times soever they may have been mailed, they always go free by virtue of the stamp. Some attempts have been made by the post-office to limit the time after date, in which stamped papers are transmissible free of postage. But the restrictions have all been borne away by the public convenience and the public will. The amount received for newspaper stamps, in the year ending January 5, 1844, was 271,180. This goes to the treasury, and not to the post-office, although the 1_d_. stamp duty was retained solely with a view to the postage. This sum ought, therefore, in strictness, to be added to the gross annual receipts of the post-office; and indeed, to the net income of the post-office, for the whole expense of mailing, transporting and delivering is included in the yearly expenditures of the post-office, so that the amount of stamp duty is all gain to the treasury, saving the trifling cost of stamping.

The cost of stamping paper for the newspapers was stated before the Parliamentary Committee, by John Wood, Esq., Chairman of the Board of Stamps and Taxes. He says, "A great deal of time is employed in attaching the stamp to each sheet of paper, because each has to be separated from the quire or bundle, and the stamp separately applied to it. I calculate that sheets of paper might be stamped and delivered in London, at an expense not exceeding 1_s_. per thousand. In that I include what is called the telling out and telling in, the counting the paper before it is stamped, the stamping it, the counting it after it is stamped, and the packing and delivery of it in London." As to the question of the liability to forgery, he said that "the newspaper proprietors are all registered at Somerset House, they are all under bond, and the use of the stamps is confined to comparatively a small number of persons, so that they are very much under our eye." This stamp duty is paid by the publisher, who of course charges a price accordingly to his subscribers. There is no law against sending newspapers through any other channel, and no rule requiring them to be sent only by mail.

It is thought that a practice something like this might be introduced in this country. The plan proposed, is to allow any publisher of a newspaper to have the paper stamped before printing, for his whole issue, by paying therefor at the rate of half a cent per sheet. This would be but half the rate paid by subscribers, at the office of delivery. But as an offset to this, many sheets would be stamped which would never be carried by mail.

In Boston there are above thirty millions of newspapers printed yearly.

The stamps on all these, if paid in advance by the publisher, would come to $150,000. I do not suppose the Post-office Department realizes from all the Boston papers one hundred thousand dollars. The cost of stamping, even in the British mode, would be less than a quarter of a mill per sheet. And Yankee ingenuity would soon devise some labor-saving plan, to reduce the cost of stamping to ten cents per thousand, or one-tenth of a mill per sheet.

This plan would secure the department against losses. It would greatly increase the business of the post-office, and its income from newspapers.

It would lessen the number of dead newspapers with which our offices are now lumbered. It would aid in inducing and helping the publishers of newspapers to get into the cash system of publication; and thus a.s.sist in training the whole community to the habit of prompt payment. All newspapers, weekly or daily, that have or expect any thing like a wide circulation by mail, would soon find it for their interest to fall in with this plan. A weekly paper would pay 26 cents for each yearly subscriber.

In what way could he do so much with the same money to extend and consolidate his subscription list? A daily paper would cost $1.55 a year for postage. Most daily papers would find their advantage in paying this, to have their papers go free, even though they might economize or retrench in something else. It would greatly facilitate the circulation of intelligence, the diffusion of knowledge, the settlement and harmonizing of public opinion, and all in a manner to produce no burden in any quarter which would be felt.

It is demonstrable that the post-office, under its present regulations, receives but a small part of the papers which are printed. The Postmaster-general, in his last report, estimates the whole number of newspapers mailed yearly at 55,000,000, and of pamphlets 2,000,000, total 57,000,000, yielding to the department only the sum of $653,160. I have never seen any calculation of the cost of circulating newspapers, to determine whether the business is profitable to the department or not. If it pays to circulate newspapers at a cent apiece, surely two cents apiece is enough to pay on letters, which do not weigh on the average a quarter as much as newspapers. If it does not pay the cost to carry newspapers in the mail, then the loss on newspapers ought to be a tax upon the treasury, and not a tax upon correspondence.

The following table of newspapers and periodicals issued annually from the Boston press, is given in Shattuck's "Census of Boston," published by the city in the year 1846.

Cla.s.s of Publications. Number. Square inches. Value.

Daily subscription 5,075,320 4,786,029,240 $106,076 Daily penny 11,408,000 7,018,617,000 110,400 Semi-weekly 1,460,448 1,442,010,336 58,748 Weekly 11,610,040 8,738,546,856 334,895 Semi-monthly 458,400 216,314,000 31,700 Monthly 2,583,600 1,522,477,200 127,100 Two months and quarterly 37,200 143,076,800 24,500 Annual 255,500 265,045,300 31,565 ---- ---- ---- Total 32,890,508 24,132,117,132 $825,074

Here are 32,890,508 publications issued annually, averaging 109,098 daily, and containing 3847 acres of printed sheets, or about twelve acres per day. The newspapers alone, daily, semi-weekly and weekly, are 29,555,808, producing $610,119 per annum. Add the semi-monthly issues, which are mostly newspapers, and you have thirty millions of newspapers issued in Boston alone, being nearly fifty-five per cent. of the whole number mailed throughout the union.

A newspaper of the common size, say 38 by 24 inches, or 912 square inches, will weigh from 1- to 1-? oz. with the wrapper, in the damp state in which it is usually mailed. The New York Journal of Commerce, 28 by 46 inches, that is, 1288 square inches, weighs a little short of 2 oz. as mailed. A lot of 100 papers received in exchange by a publisher, weighed 1.2 oz., that is less than an ounce and a quarter. The average weight of all the newspapers published in the country is believed to be one ounce and a half; which would give 1066 newspapers to every 100 lbs. weight.

The number of newspapers sent by mail was estimated in 1837, by Postmaster Kendall, as follows:

Newspapers paying postage 25,000,000 Free and dead papers 4,000,000 ---- ---- Total 29,000,000

The report in 1847, by Postmaster Johnson, estimates the paying newspapers at fifty-five millions, dead papers two millions, and the pamphlets two millions, being fifty-nine millions in all; paying postage to the amount of $643,160, being an increase over the preceding year, of $81,018. The increase of newspapers in seven years, from 1837 to 1844, by these estimates, was eighty-nine per cent., or at the rate of about eight and one half per cent. a year. The increase from 1844 to 1847 was about twenty-four per cent. in three years, or eight per cent. a year. This may be considered the natural rate of increase of newspapers, without any increase of facilities. It may be reasonably calculated that the increased facilities offered by this plan will make the increase of numbers much more rapid.

And this increase of numbers will by no means be attended with a corresponding increase of expense to the department. In 1837, when the number of papers was twenty-nine millions, there were 11,767 post-offices, and mails were carried 36,228,962 miles. In 1844, the post-offices were 15,146, an increase of twenty-nine per cent., and the mail transportation was 38,887,899 miles, an increase of seven per cent., while the increase of newspapers was eighty-nine per cent.; and yet the expenditure was $3,380,847 in 1837, and $3,979,570 in 1847; an increase of less than eighteen per cent. Deducting the necessary additional expense of adding twenty-nine per cent. to the number of post-offices, and seven per cent.

to the distance of transportation, and it will be fair to conclude that doubling the number of newspapers would not add above ten per cent. to the cost of transportation. Make any reasonable allowance, even fifty per cent. for the labor in the post-offices, and you have still a net profit of forty per cent. on all the newspaper postage that shall be added. And this in addition to the benefits of the diffusion of knowledge, increasing the mutual acquaintance of the people of this wide republic, and thus increasing the stability of our government, the permanence of our union, the happiness of the people, and the perfection of our free inst.i.tutions.

VIII. _Pamphlet and Magazine Postage_.

The postage on pamphlets was regulated on the principles of cheap postage, with a special discrimination in favor of those pamphlets which were published periodically. This latter distinction was construed so liberally, that it was allowed to include among periodicals all pamphlets published annually, such as almanacs, college catalogues, reports of societies, and the like. The law of 1845 abolishes the distinction between periodical and occasional pamphlets, but makes a difference in favor of large pamphlets, by charging two and a half cents on all pamphlets weighing less than one ounce, and one cent for each additional ounce.

I have a letter from the proprietor of a quarterly review, stating the effect which this change in the mode of rating pamphlet postage had upon its own circulation. Before the act of 1845, the post-office charged 14 cents per number, or 56 cents a year. Now it is 10 cents per number, or 36 cents a year. The consequence is, that where he formerly sent 100 copies by mail, yielding $56 postage, he now sends 500 copies, paying $180, increasing the income of the department $124. As there has been a material reduction in the expenditure of the department, notwithstanding a great extension of the mail routes, it is plain that the expense to the department is not at all enhanced by this additional service. As the labor of management is much diminished in the case of such large pamphlets, it is possible that future experience may show the practicability of a still greater reduction in the case of such periodicals-perhaps allowing publishers' to _prepay_ at four cents for each half-pound.

In Great Britain, there has. .h.i.therto been no separate rate of postage for pamphlets, but they have been charged at the rate of letter postage, 1_d._ per half-ounce. This is about double the present rate of pamphlet postage in the United States. The delivery of parcels by stage-coaches, railroads, and common carriers, is much more thoroughly systematized in that old country, with its dense population and limited extent, than it can be with us, on our vast territory, so new and so unfinished. Consequently, there is less necessity there for sending pamphlets by mail, and the thing is rarely done except in the case of small pamphlets, of an ounce or two weight, or in cases where despatch in transmission is important. Within the present year, however, a new rule has been introduced into the British post-office, by which "any book or pamphlet, exceeding one sheet, and not exceeding two feet in its longest dimensions, may be transmitted by post between any two places in the United Kingdom, at the uniform rate of sixpence, prepaid in stamps affixed, for each pound weight and fraction of a pound. Except in the extreme length of two feet, and that, of course, no envelope shall contain more than one copy, there is no restriction whatsoever. Families residing in the remote parts of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, where perhaps there is no good bookseller within forty or fifty miles, may henceforward procure for themselves, direct from London, Edinburgh, or Dublin, within four or five days at furthest, any work they may happen to require, from the largest sized Bible or Atlas, to the most trifling pamphlet or school-book. A delay of twenty-four hours in the despatch, after posting, is rendered indispensable by the possibility there is of an overplus of such bulky packages on particular occasions."

A rate of 6_d._ per pound, is at the rate of .75, or of a cent per ounce, being prepaid in all cases. The rate I have proposed for large periodicals, prepaid, is one-fourth of a cent below this, or less by one-third of the English rate. It is doubtful whether a lower rate would be consistent with a due regard to the necessary speed of the mails, until railroad conveyance shall be more generally extended than it now is.