CHEAP POSTAGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18973, 26 March 1924, Page 8

CHEAP POSTAGE

The advantages of cheap postage were presented by Lord Blyth in renewing his appeal to the British Government to restore Id postage. “Foremost of auxiliaries for the solution of unemployment, and an essential factor of success in all commercial activity, is the impulse of cheap postage. In the opinion of every man of thought and weight, it is the golden key of our industrial future,” he declares. “Whatever loss there were in revenue (which at most would be but temporary) from the establishment of universal penny postage would be microscopic as compared with the prodigius gain to the country and the resultant increase of employment. The difference in cost of sorting, conveying, and delivering a letter 10 miles or 10,000 miles away is negligible. Every plan for promoting employment must be enoromusly enhanced in practical utility if accompanied by cheap postage. Without it every such project will be shorn of at least half its potential value. It is no figment of fancy to say that dear postage halves and cheap postage doubles business transactions. The impetus of frequent letters engendered by the nimble penny moves with ever-in-creasing momentum the wheels of trade and industry, so that mercantile and social, family and friendly correspondence became winged messengers of peace and active ambassadors of commerce. Expenditure on a cheap and efficient postal service first and last and all the time is reproductive expenditure; and the restoration of penny postage, more especially a bold policy of universal penny post, would, to an almost unthinkable extent, hasten the eagerly-awaited arrival of trade and promote that mutual goodwill which is more than ever essential for commer cial interchange and for abiding peace in the world.”