Proven Of Great Value

RURAL DELIVERY HAS BECOME AN ESTABLISHED FACT

SAYS POSTMASTER-GENERAL IN HIS ANNUAL REPORT.

HAS INCREASED THE VALUE OF FARM PROPERTY.

"Washington, Nov. 28 - Hon. Henry C. Payne, postmaster-general, has issued his annual report for the year ending June 30, 1902. In addition to a condensation of the statistical tables furnished by Third Assistant Postmaster-General Madden, it contains a general resume of the work of the department for the year and recommends certain changes in condition to better facilitate the work in hand.

Regarding the rural free delivery the report says:

"Rural free delivery service has become an established fact. It is no longer in the experimental stage, and undoubtedly congress will continue to increase the appropriation for this service until all people of the country are reached, where it is quickly enough settled to warrant. The estimates of the department are to the effect that the available territory for this service embraces about 1,000.000 square miles, or one-third of the country's area exclusive of Alaska. The 11,650 routes now in operation cover about one-third of the available territory. From this it will be seen that it will require 27,000 employes additional to those now in the service to cover this territory. If congress shall make the necessary appropriations, it is believed that within the next three years the extension of the service will have been completed.

"With the carriers' salary fixed at $600 per annum the annual gross cost of the completed rural free delivery service will approximate $24,000,000. Th people are demanding the service with impatient earnestness. and this demand is being vigorously supported by their representatives in congress. The experience of the department in counties where the service has been fully established for a period of two years justifies the belief that the revenues in the rural districts will increase fivefold over what they have under the conditions heretofore prevailing."

The report shows that there were In operatlon on June 30 last 327 electric car routes, aggregating 2,508 miles in length, 7,534,757 miles in annual travel, and costing $414,348.75. The increase in length was 551 miles, in annual travel 945,348 miles, and in annual expenditure $51,734.58.

On the regular railway mail service at the close of the year there were 1,350 lines of traveling post offices. covering 178,796 miles In length. The number of clerks employed was 9,731, annual travel by them in cars, 221,589,999 miles. To accomplish this, 3,785 cars and apartments were used on the steam roads, besides 24 cars on the electric lines under the supervision of the railway mail service, and 83 apartments on steamboats.

Regarding the reduction of rates of foreign postage the report says:

"The domestic rate of postage is 2 cents for each ounce or fraction thereof: the foreign rate is 5 cents for each half ounce or fraction thereof. A letter which would cost but 2 cents to transmit in the United States would require 10 cents in postage, or five times as much, if sent to England.

"I recommend, therefore, that negotiations be undertaken with Great Britain, Germany and France for the purpose of modifying the rates of postage as suggested. believing that correspondence would be stimulated to such extent that within a very short time it would result in an increase in the interchange of communications, which would bring greater returns than obtain from the present rates. Such a result followed the reduction in the domestic rates of postage."