THE PENNY POST. A CANADIAN EXPERIMENT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 9171, 13 June 1901, Page 4

THE PENNY POST. A CANADIAN EXPERIMENT.

Mr Mulock, the Canadian Postmaster.General, who came here (says the Sydney Telegraph) to represent the Government h* the other British Federation at the opttHng of the Commonwealth Parliament, w an authority on the question of cheap postage. He has assimilated all the knowledge held by men on the subject, all that, has been written m books and official documents or communicated to him verbally, and has had two years' experience of a system m which the rates were dropped to the universal penny on hia initiator*. Therefore, he a entitled to speak.' He was asked on May 29 by a tepresentative of this paper what had, been the financial result 'of Conada^adopting the penny post He replied: "I have just got a letter from one of my officers oh that very question, and can give you the exact figures. Our adoption of the penny postage on letters within Canada, and also letters to Great Britain and the colonies, and to the United States of America, was enforced two years ago on. January Ist last. At first there was a considerable shrinkage of the revenue, but it gradually increased, and at tbe expiration of two yean the daily revenue was equal to what it had been prior to the reduction. The revenue for the past four months is at the rate of a quarter of a million dollars greater than for the corresponding four months at- the higher rates. "What were the reductions made?" — "The reductions were from 2£d to Id o^ oversea letters and from l£d to Id on letters within. North America. The reduction has had a good effect on the department generally, apart, from the great benefit which cheap postage confers upon th« people. For many years the revenue at the higher rates of postage failed by about £120,000 a year to pay expenses. We made that annual loss on the busi-. ness. This year, with the reduced rates, the increased revenue, -with the assistance of certain economies, I expect, and the latest figures bear me out, that the deficit will not be one-half that amount." "Did handling tbe additional number of letters at the cheaper rate-cat Seae a great increase m the expenditure!" — "Practically, not a farthing. Or, perhaps, I should not say that, for there would be a slight increase m the number of lettercarriers m the cities. Bu/ we paid no more for carrying the letters on the railways or by teams. You may say there was no appreciable additional cost." "Do you think Australia could adopt a : - penny postage with similar results?" — "That is a question which I don't care about answering. I give you the facts of what we have done, and you can draw your own deductions. I would say this, though, that the whole history of postal i services is a long succession of reductions ■ to lower rates. And everywhere the re- j suits have justified the experiment. There ! are ample precedents m the statistics of the world for anyone who cares to seek them to show that there has been a steady reduction m all the leading countries like Great Britain, the United States, Canada, France, and Germany. The drift has always been m the direction of lower rates. If reductions have proved m theseVcountries that, m spite of commercial crises, the revenue pulls up- and improves within two or three years, is there anything so special or altogether new m your country that would prevent your achieving the same result? -- j "You mast be prepared to face a shrinkage for two or three years. I told them m Canada that we would be three years pulling up, but tbe result has been that we have bettered our former condition m only 18 months."