Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1909 LEAKAGE OF REVENUE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4378, 25 February 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1909 LEAKAGE OF REVENUE.

I his above all—to thine own self be true, \nd tt must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

It is a curious fact that in the conservative British conception there is so strong a disposition to accept the maxim that “ whatever is best, ” without any reflection as to whether it is really best, and if so why. For iustance, take our presept postage system. Not many weeks ago we were privileged to enter into conversation with a gentleman of a considerable business experience, and financial shrewdness. This gentleman put forth the proposition that there is a huge waste in con nection with our present system of paying for the delivery of correspoildenee by means of the postage stamp system. The idea of course was a some what startling one, for he proposed to abolish the use of postage stamps altogether. His argument was that, the cost of manufacturing stamps, the cost of selling them (for said he “we employ adult labour in our post offic.'S to sell stamps,” land the cost of checking the letters by effacing the stamps would all be saved were we to abolish the use of postage stamps. Further, one prolific source of tubercular infection would be done away.

Another point he made was that the cost of postage is most unequally distributed, inasmuch as the sender bears all the expense, while the receiver of the letter pays nothing for the letter which is conveyed to him. He argued that nowadays men do not pay for the right to travel over the high roads, all the roads being kept in order by the state. The idea of doing away with the postage stamp system (which certainly does involve a tremendous outlay of wholly unproductive labour) appeared such a practical way of arresting that form of the leakage of revenue, that one felt that there must be some method of defraying the cost to the state of our letter carrying system, and affording a substantial revenue besides.

But the only solution which appears to offer itself for doing away with the labour involved in the individual payment for the send ing of individual letters is the levying by the state of a postage rate, just as the municipality levies a water rale. Of course the basis of calculation would need to- be the probable approximate amount of correspondence engaged in by a business firm, private families would need ti be rated according to the style and value of their establishments. Firms dealing in patent medicines for instance would have to pay a rate or hold a postage license based upon the probable excess of correspondence indulged in by them. Other sorts of businesses would be rated on a corresponding basis ; and of course there would be a defined limit to the weight of letters and printed matter which a mere correspondence rate or license covered.

If such a system came into force the revenue would be a tremendous accession to the energy with which the state would discover and arrest the sale and advertisement of pernicious drugs ; for it would not be the source of revenue to the Government which it how is to be posting circulars setting forth the fictitious merits of So and So’s fraudulent physic. The Government would naturally find itself overcome with a most economical desire to convey only such advertisements as proclaimed the recommendations of honest stuff, and the onus of proof resting upon the state, it would not be long in finding out what it really could be expected to distribute under the patent drugs postage license, and what it might justly refuse to take. For this class'of exploiter of men’s sufferings would be the very class to abuse a postage licence, by exceeding all bounds in its output of lying circulars! and in order to cope with the requirements of legitimate firms the state would only be able to sell licences to those who would use them for the advocacy of the merits of decent stuff.

At first sight this may appear a most arbitrary - metho I of distri.

buting the cost of postage. But to take the water rate way of paying for the use of the water supplied by our municipalities, how absurd a thing it would seem if each user of that supply had to pay an individual fee for each individual bath he indulged in, and suppose that in connection with this finely adjusted cost, (which was based upon each person’s actual consumption of water,) suppose that in order to check this consumption, grown-up , employees of the municipality were engaged day by day at a good wage, I manufacturing the checks and I selling and checking them. The ! whole thing would seem utterly i insane. In our postage system as it | at present stands, we certainly do not mete out a tangible thing such as water or gas, but we sell the convenience pf (it .letter conveyance, and we sell it upon a system which maintains a stead leakage of capilal, in the form of the lnbour employed solely in the sale, and in the checking of the 1 sale of that convenience to each individual consumer.