Consequently the post-office is put on a par with ordinary customers, and such trains are used for mail matter as the directors of each line may see fit to use for other matter. Hence it occurs that no offense against the post-office is committed when the connection between different mail trains is broken. The post-office takes the best it can get, paying as other customers pay, and grumbling as other customers grumble when the service rendered falls short of that which has been promised.
It may, I think, easily be seen that any system, such as ours, carried across so large a country, would go on increasing in cost at an enormous ratio. The greater is the distance, the greater is the difficulty in securing the proper fitting of fast-running trains.
And moreover, it must be remembered that the American lines have been got up on a very different footing from ours, at an expense per mile of probably less than a fifth of that laid out on our railways.
Single lines of rail are common, even between great towns with large traffic. At the present moment, February, 1862, the only railway running into Washington, that namely from Baltimore, is a single line over the greater distance. The whole thing is necessarily worked at a cheaper rate than with us; not because the people are poorer, but because the distances are greater. As this is the case throughout the whole railway system of the country, it cannot be expected that such dispatch and punctuality should be achieved in America as are achieved here in England, or in France. As population and wealth increase it will come. In the mean time that which has been already done over the extent of the vast North American continent is very wonderful. I think, therefore, that complaint should not be made against the Washington post-office, either on account of the inconvenience of the hours or on the head of occasional irregularity. So much has been done in reducing the rate to three cents, and in giving a daily mail throughout the States, that the department should be praised for energy, and not blamed for apathy.
In the year ended June 30, 1861, the gross revenue of the post-office of the States was, as I have stated, 1,700,000l. In the same year its expenditure was in round figures 2,720,000l.; consequently there was an actual loss, to be made up out of general taxation, amounting to 1,020,000l. In the accounts of the American officers this is lessened by 140,000l. That sum having been arbitrarily fixed by the government as the amount earned by the post-office in carrying free mail matter. We have a similar system in computing the value of the service rendered by our post-office to the government in carrying government dispatches; but with us the amount named as the compensation depends on the actual weight carried. If the matter so carried be carried solely on the government service, as is, I believe, the case with us, any such claim on behalf of the post-office is apparently unnecessary. The Crown works for the Crown, as the right hand works for the left. The post-office pays no rates or taxes, contributes nothing to the poor, runs its mails on turnpike roads free of toll, and gives receipts on unstamped paper. With us no payment is in truth made, though the post-office in its accounts presumes itself to have received the money; but in the States the sum named is handed over by the State Treasury to the Post-office Treasury. Any such statement of credit does not in effect alter the real fact that over a million sterling is required as a subsidy by the American post-office, in order that it may be enabled to pay its way. In estimating the expenditure of the office the department at Washington debits itself with the sums paid for the ocean transit of its mails, amounting to something over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. We also now do the same, with the much greater sum paid by us for such service, which now amounts to 949,228l., or nearly a million sterling. Till lately this was not paid out of the post-office moneys, and the post-office revenue was not debited with the amount.
Our gross post-office revenue is, as I have said, 3,358,250l. As before explained, this is exclusive of the amount earned by the money order department, which, though managed by the authorities of the post-office, cannot be called a part of the post-office; and exclusive also of the official postage, which is, in fact, never received. The expenditure of our British post-office, inclusive of the sum paid for the ocean mail service, is 3,064,527l.; we therefore make a net profit of 293,723l. out of the post-office, as compared with a loss of 1,020,000l. on the part of the United States.
But perhaps the greatest difficulty with which the American post-office is burdened is that "free mail matter" to which I have alluded, for carrying which the post-office claims to earn 140,000l., and for the carriage of which it might as fairly claim to earn 1,350,000l., or half the amount of its total expenditure, for Iwas informed by a gentleman whose knowledge on the subject could not be doubted, that the free mail matter so carried equaled in bulk and weight all that other matter which was not carried free. To such an extent has the privilege of franking been carried in the States!