Why Our Post Office Does Not Pay

Our national post office shows a deficit of between $15,000,000 and $16,000,000 this year, while the English government has a surplus of about $20,000,000 annually. The cause of deficit does not rest with letter postage. That has always paid its way and substantially supported the whole service. The discrepancy between receipts and expenditures arises froin auother source. The loss to the government by second-class mail matter is scarcely less than forty millions of dollars a year, the established rate for this class beiug only one-fifteentli of the actual cost of transmission and handling. Nearly three-fourths of tlie total weight of all mail matter carried in the United States mails consists of this unprofitable second-class matter, and in number of pieces to be handled it makes one-third of the entire mail service. It is increasing at the rate of 15 per cent, a year, while first-class