The International Postal Service

Articles other than letters were not encouraged. There was practically no case in which a newspaper could be prepaid to its destination ; books were usually liable to the prohibitive letter rate, as were periodicals other than registered newspapers. For printed papers other than books, newspapers and periodicals no special rates were in force.

From the point of view of post office management also, the complexity of the service was, with the industrial development of the i9th century and the constant growth of correspondence, reaching a point at which the rapid and accurate handling of the mails became wellnigh impossible. Before a mail could be despatched it had to be classified into perhaps a dozen distinct di visions. Each section had to be separately weighed and full details entered on an elaborate waybill in accordance with the particular method of accounting in force with the country concerned. On the arrival of a mail the details given by the country of origin had to be checked and a form of receipt on the lines of the original waybill completed and returned. Almost the only advance made over the procedure in force in the i 7th century was that letters were weighed in bulk instead of singly. With this procedure there was naturally considerable delay both in making up the outward mails and in releasing the inward letters for delivery. The example of a simple and uniform tariff had been set by the establishment of penny postage ; but the principle which underlay Hill's scheme for obtaining uniformity, viz., that the cost of conveyance of a letter represented only a small fraction of the total cost of its treatment, was far from being applicable to the conditions of the international post.

Formation of the Postal Union.

The first step in the direc tion of reform was taken by the United States, which in 1862 suggested a conference for the purpose of considering the im provement and simplification of international postal relations. This met in Paris in 1863 and adopted a code of 31 articles, in tended to serve as the basis of international conventions. Further progress was delayed first by the American Civil War and then by the Franco-German War. In the meantime, however, another great postal reformer, Dr. von Stephan, of the North German Postal Confederation, had devoted himself to the question of developing and expanding the somewhat meagre results of the conference of 1863, and had prepared a project for a universal postal union, based in part on the conclusions of the conference and in part on the experience of Germany, which had some years before formed a postal union including Prussia, Austria and the whole of the other German States, nearly 20 in number. The Swiss

Government, at the instance of Germany, summoned a conference to meet at Berne to consider the proposal to form a general postal union.

The Congress of Berne met in September 1874 and was attended by the representatives of 2 2 States, including the whole of Europe, the United States and Egypt. The result of the Congress was the signature of the first International Postal Convention, which has remained from 1875 to the present time, with comparatively little modification, the foundation of the international postal service.

The fundamental principle of the union is contained in a strik ing article which lays down that for the purposes of postal com munication the whole of the signatory countries form one single territory. The practical application of this principle lies in the doctrine of liberty of transit; every member of the union binds itself to transmit the mails entrusted to it by every other mem ber by the best means of communication which it employs for its own letters. Thus each country has in effect the full and un restricted use of the railway and steamship services of the whole world, and any improvement made by any member of the union is placed at the disposal of any other which desires to utilize it.

The membership of the union was at first somewhat limited, and was mainly European, although from the first the United States, Asiatic Russia and Asiatic Turkey, were included. Exten sions of membership, were, however rapid. Ten years after its foundation the union included 86 postal administrations; by 1900 there were 113, and the process has steadily continued. China (1914) was the last large country to adhere; Russia fell out for a time after the revolution, but subsequently adhered anew ; and at the present time there is hardly any part of the world which still remains outside. As an indication of the range of the postal service, it is of interest to note that the countries which are mem bers of the union are responsible at the time of writing (1928) for the delivery of some forty thousand million letters a year.