It is noteworthy that the post has never played the same part in the distribution of newspapers in England as it has in most other countries, as private distributors by concentrating on this one class of business and profiting by specially low rates of con veyance, etc., can carry it on more economically than a Govern ment department. Incidentally the postal budget has been spared the heavy losses entailed on the revenues of so many foreign post offices by the low and unremunerative charges at which news papers are still conveyed. The United States post office in par ticular has for years been endeavouring to raise its very low rates, under which it is difficult for the postal revenue to avoid showing a serious working loss, to a level more commensurate with its costs, but hitherto with only partial success. Before the war some 200,000,000 newspapers annually were delivered in Great Britain through the post, a large part of these of course being for places to which distribution by other means was im possible; at the present time the number is about 165,000,00o.
Book first special rate of postage introduced after 1840 was the book post, instituted in 1848. This was intended to benefit education and literature and was fixed at 6d. a lb. Various reductions were made in the scale until in 1870 it was reduced to 1d. per 2 oz., at which after a temporary increase in the post-war period it still remains. This post, owing to suc cessive enlargements in the definition of articles admissible at the low rate, now comprises practically all kinds of commercial documents wholly or partly printed. It is not remunerative but is naturally extremely popular. Before the war the annual number was about 1J00,000,000. The increase to id. seriously checked the use made of it, but by 1928 it had recovered its popularity and was used to the extent of about 1,750,000,000 packets a year.
Postcards.—The next reform was not of British growth. The Austrian post office introduced the inland postcard in 1869; it won immediate success, and was adopted in England in 1870, the rate being fixed at 1d. For many years only official postcards were allowed ; but the admission of private cards paid at the postcard rate, first allowed in 1894, was tlie origin of that notable development, the picture postcard, the numbers of which, though checked by the raising of the rate to id. (at which it still re mains) in 1918, still represent, particularly at holiday resorts, a formidable addition to the work of the post office. In 1871 the number of postcards passing through the post was 75,000,00o; in 1928 it was approximately 470,000,00o.
Sample Post.—Only one of the experiments in postage rates carried out under the Rowland Hill regime has failed to establish itself permanently in the modern inland service. This is the sample post, established in 1863, with the idea of allowing a special rate to bona fide trade patterns and samples. The rate charged at the outset was 3d. for 4 oz., rising to is. 6d. for 24 oz., the maximum weight permitted ; but after successive reduc tions it was brought down in 1870 to the book post rate of 1d.
per 2 oz. The rule that the sample post should be restricted to bona fide samples was found in practice to be extremely difficult to enforce; and constant difficulties were experienced in secur ing strict application of the regulations, which was necessary to prevent the post going beyond its recognized objects and being transformed into a post for small parcels of every kind. The sample post was therefore abolished in 1871, the letter post rates being adjusted at the same time so as to reduce the postage on light packets. The sample post was, however, again revived in 1887, but gave rise to the same difficulties as before ; and it was again merged in the letter post under the reduced rates conceded in 1897. Finally it had a further temporary lease of life during the war, following on the increase in the letter post rates, and was abolished for the third time in 1918. Although the sample post still survives in the international post under the terms of the Postal Union Convention it is even there a constant source of difficulties ; and its history is an example of the unsoundness of the practice of making postage rates rest not on such simple and indisputable principles as weight or, in certain cases, char acter of contents, but on the elusive and unsatisfactory basis of the motive with which the packets are sent.
The parcel post, established in 1883, is referred to in detail later.
Registration.—The system of granting compensation for the loss of a packet in the post was a feature of the original London penny post of 168o; but the present system of registration is a comparatively modern development. A parliamentary com mission in 1838 recommended a uniform system of registration at a charge of 2d., liability being accepted up to /5. The reform of postage rates, however, caused the postponement of the scheme and it was not until 1841 that a general registration system came into being, and then only in an attenuated form, a fee of Is. being charged and no responsibility being accepted in the event of loss. The service was not attractive, and little traffic was ob tained; but though the fee was reduced, it was not until 1878 that the principle of compensation was adopted. The amount was originally fixed at L2, but was gradually increased, by a com bination of registration with insurance and the introduction of a graduated scale of fees, until in 1906 the present system was introduced under which the minimum fee (now 3d. as compared with the pre-war 2d.) covers compensation up to £5, and the maximum fee 1400. The service is very popular, some 57,000,00o registered letters and parcels being sent annually ; and the per centage of losses on this total is infinitesimal.
The statistics of the growth of post office business are of con siderable interest as an indication of the expansion of trade, the spread of education, and of course of the extension of postal facilities. The following table gives for each decade since the establishment of penny postage the total number of packets of all kinds sent by post and the number per head of the population.