POSTAL SERVICES IN OTHER COUNTRIES France.—The establishment of a State post in France goes back to 1464, though its early history is very obscure. Improve ments were made from time to time in organization, e.g., by Richelieu in 1627 and Mazarin in 1643 ; but the system of farm ing, which was tried in England for a short time in the 17th century, persisted in France till the Revolution, when it was swept away and a Committee appointed to manage the postal service. Napoleon in 1804 replaced the Committee by a single Director General; and his organization has remained in general outline unchanged. Of recent years, however, the Post Office has rarely been entrusted to an independent Minister; it has usually been attached to another Ministry—Treasury, Public Works or Commerce and Industry; and its immediate chief is sometimes an under-secretary of State, sometimes a secretary-general drawn from the permanent Civil Service.
The financial conditions since the war have made the stabiliza tion of postage rates a matter of some difficulty; but they are now, generally speaking, fixed on the pre-war basis, having regard to the altered value of the franc. The inland letter rate begins at 5o c. (id.) per 20 grammes; but the rate on heavy letters is relatively low; and on a letter weighing 1,500 grammes (about 31 lb.), the maximum weight, the charge is only 5 fr. 20, or about 'old. The domestic letter rates apply to the whole of the French Colonies.
The lowest postage rate is that applied to newspapers. News papers which have been "routed" by the publishers are accepted at the rate of centime for delivery in the Department of Publication and neighbouring departments or 1 centime ( for the whole of France and the Colonies.
At the present rates, however, the Postal service shows a con siderable annual profit ; in 1927 the balance of the "compte d'ex ploitation" amounted to nearly 300,000,00o francs.
The parcel post (colis postaux) though nominally a postal service, is operated by the Railway Companies. There is a par ticularly low rate (I f. 25 for 5 kilos, or 21d. per 11 lb.) for the local service in Paris; and the rates for the whole of France are moderate.
One of the most recent undertakings of the French Post Office is the postal cheque system, which of late years has developed rapidly and is now a recognized feature of French finance. Ac cording to recent statistics there are about 370,000 depositors, and the annual sum paid in to postal cheque accounts is about 161,000,000,00o francs.
a Money Order service with a turnover of 3,677,000,00o marks a year, an extensive Cash on Delivery service with a turnover only slightly less, and a Postal cheque service with 922,000 accounts.
The Reichspostfinanzgesetz (Imperial Post Office Finance Act) of 1924 changed the constitution of the Post Office and the service was separated from the general financial organisation and established on an independent basis analogous to that of a com mercial company. The Post Office can now no longer look to the Treasury to recoup any losses.
The Administration is in the hands of a Minister, who is an Imperial official paid from Imperial funds and is responsible to Parliament for the general results of the service. The Minister is assisted by an Administrative Council of 41 members repre sentative of the Reichstag, the Reichsrat, the Ministry of Finance, the staff of the Post Office, and of commercial interests.
The Minister is required to consult the Council, but the de cisions of the latter are not necessarily binding. It cannot increase the estimates of expenditure presented to it by the Minister without his concurrence, and the latter may also refer to the Government for decision any resolution which he judges to be inexpedient.
The actual powers of the Post Office Administration are, how ever, very considerable. For example, it fixes the estimates of expenditure, decides on all questions of borrowing for post office purposes, of redemption of debt and of the investment of the Postal Cheque Office balances, settles the rates of pay of certain classes of Post Office employees, determines whether new classes of business are to be undertaken, and, what is most important from the public point of view, fixes rates of postage and telegraph and telephone charges.
The result of this organization is a close attention to the financial results of the undertaking. While questions of organisa tion and administrative economies are carefully studied, the ques tion of rates is kept under constant observation; and when it was found that the maintenance of the old rate of io pf. (id.) for the letter post could not be justified, the Administration in August 1927 raised the rate by 50% (to 15 pf.) and carried out corre sponding alterations in other postal rates. The postal traffic for 1927-28, however, showed an appreciable increase over the previous year, and the contribution of the Post Office to the Exchequer was 70,000,00o marks (L3,500,000) for the year.
(F. H. W.)