X. THE CONTINUOUS REFUSAL OF THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT TO ORDER REWEIGHINGS OF THE MAILS EXCEPT AFTER THE MAXIMUM INTERVAL OF FOUR YEARS WHICH THE LAW ALLOWS, THE DEMANDS FOR STATION AND TERMINAL SERVICES THAT ARE RENDERED WITHOUT ANY OR WITHOUT ADEQUATE COMPENSATION AND THE UNJUST DISCRIMINATION AGAINST COMPARTMENT CARS USED AS RAILWAY POST OFFICES ARE ALL ABUSES, SERIOUSLY INJURIOUS TO THE RAILWAYS, WHICH HAVE GROWN UP UNDER THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF PAYMENT AND OUGHT AT ONCE TO BE REMEDIED.

In addition to the inadequacies in the rates of pay provided under the present law, which result in payments that do not leave any balance for taxes or return upon property and indeed do not even meet operating expenses, there are certain conditions which have grown up in the application of the existing basis of pay that ought to be rectified. This is especially necessary in view of the tendency, herein shown, of the Post Office Department to apply the system so as to reduce its expense for railway transportation, and to look to this item as the chief or sole source of economies.

The transportation pay received for each railway route is determined, under the practice of the Department, for a period of four years on the basis of the average daily weight carried during a period of about three months duration prior to the beginning of the period for which it is fixed. Thus, by the terms of the law, the Government upholds the principle that weight should be the basis of payment but, by an inconsistent practice, denies that principle and creates a condition under which it is practically certain that the weight actually carried will differ materially from the weight paid for. Congress, surely, never intended this result for the provision of law is, merely, that the mail shall be weighed "not less frequently" than once in four years and clearly implies an intention that it should be weighed whenever a substantial change in volume has taken place. But the Post Office Department controls, subject to the provision of law, the frequency of the weighings, and naturally seeks those reductions in its expenses which can be effected without loss anywhere except in railway revenues. Consequently, it long ago ceased to order new weighings, except when compelled to do so by the expiration of the statutory limit. It thus happens that while the railways are paid on the basis of a certain average daily weight they are frequently carrying a much greater weight and with no compensation whatever for the increase in the weight. In other instances the change is in the opposite direction but with increasing national population and wealth it is obvious that most of these changes must be to the injury of the railways. However, the element of uncertainty thus introduced into each contract is unbusinesslike and in fairness to both parties ought to be removed. No railway would make a four years' contract to carry, for a definite sum, the unlimited output of any manufacturing plant and if it attempted to do so the contract would be void under the Interstate Commerce law. The terms of the mail contracts are substantially dictated by the Postmaster-General and by Congress and the latter ought, in justice both to the railways and to the Government, to require the former to make annual weighings in order that the scheme of payment provided in the law may be fairly and accurately applied.

Railways are required to transfer the mails between their stations and all post offices not more than a quarter of a mile distant from the former and, at the election of the Post Office Department, to make similar transfers at terminals. For the former no compensation is accorded, and for the latter the allowances are inadequate. There are numerous instances in which these extra services require expenditures, on the part of the railways concerned, that exceed the total compensation of the mail routes on which they occur. The extent of these requirements in particular cases is largely subject to the will of the Department and this produces unreasonable uncertainties as to what may be demanded during the life of any contract. The basis of payment plainly does not contemplate such services, they are a survival from the period when the mails were carried by stage-coaches, which could readily deviate these distances from their ordinary routes, and it is clear that the Government ought to perform these services itself or reasonably compensate the railways therefor.

Much of the mail moved by the railways is carried in cars especially equipped as traveling post offices in order that it may be accompanied by postal clerks who perform, on the journey, precisely the labor which they would otherwise perform in local post offices. Cars so used can be but lightly loaded and are costly to supply, to equip, to maintain and to move. Their use has greatly increased the efficiency of the postal service and vastly expedited the handling of the mails. In the infancy of this service Congress provided for additional payments for the full cars so required, but when the practice of requiring portions of cars for the same identical purpose was inaugurated no provision for paying for them was made and this condition never has been corrected. Even in Document No. 105, the injustice of this situation is recognized (page 3) and the Postmaster-General asserts that it is a purely arbitrary discrimination and without logical basis. Obviously a reasonable allowance for apartment cars ought to be made.