This is the more pleasing because our people
enjoy now both cheaper postage proportionably to distances and a vaster
and more costly service than any other upon the globe.
Retrenchment has been effected in the cost of supplies, some
expenditures unwarranted by law have ceased, and the outlays for mail
carriage have been subjected to beneficial scrutiny. At the close of the
last fiscal year the expense of transportation on star routes stood at
an annual rate of cost less by over $560,000 than at the close of the
previous year and steamboat and mail-messenger service at nearly
$200,000 less.
The service has been in the meantime enlarged and extended by the
establishment of new offices, increase of routes of carriage, expansion
of carrier-delivery conveniences, and additions to the railway mail
facilities, in accordance with the growing exigencies of the country and
the long-established policy of the Government.
The Postmaster-General calls attention to the existing law for
compensating railroads and expresses the opinion that a method may be
devised which will prove more just to the carriers and beneficial to the
Government; and the subject appears worthy of your early consideration.
The differences which arose during the year with certain of the ocean
steamship companies have terminated by the acquiescence of all in the
policy of the Government approved by the Congress in the postal
appropriation at its last session, and the Department now enjoys the
utmost service afforded by all vessels which sail from our ports upon
either ocean--a service generally adequate to the needs of our
intercourse.
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