Note 273 — APPENDICES.

This caveat is abundantly justified by information published in the “Journal of the Society of Arts” (October 28th, 1870), by which it appears that in North Germany, one of the countries pointed to for our example, newspapers are subject to a regular stamp duty, such as was formerly paid in England, but the amount of which is not easily stated, since it depends upon the size of the paper and other circumstances; and, further, that the compulsory stamp has not the franking power it possessed here, so that the postage constitutes an additional charge; and it is with the sum of these two charges that our postage should in fairness be compared. But the postage alone (⅔d. for rather less than 1½ oz., with a proportionate increase for greater weights) is higher than that which was charged in this country on many papers of large circulation, e.g., the Times (with its supplement of four pages, or, under the impressed stamp, with its supplement of eight pages), the Spectator, the Economist, and the Athenæum. While, besides exemption from stamp duty, other important advantages were enjoyed by the British, as compared with the North German, papers, e.g., under the adhesive stamp, permission to write upon them anything except a letter, and, with the like exception, to enclose with them either one or more additional newspapers, or other printed or written matter, on paying book postage according to the total weight; or again, under the impressed stamp, the power of repeated retransmission. But, above all, the right to resort to other and cheaper means of conveyance, a right barred in North Germany by postal monopoly. In short, all things considered, there can scarcely be a doubt, that even before the reductions of 1870, our much depreciated newspaper arrangements were more favourable, alike to publishers and the public, than those of North Germany, which are held up as our example. Further, that the North German Post Office, instead of having to pay, like the British Post Office, £600,000 a year for the railway conveyance of its mails, has the use of all railways without subjecting itself to any charge whatever, though its operations include parcels up to the individual weight of twenty pounds; lastly, that with all these advantages, and with a higher postage rate on the prevailing class of letters, the North German Post Office, though serving a population about equal to our own, yields in annual net revenue only about £60,000, while the British Post Office, with all its burdens and its lower rate of postage, yields, even if debited with the whole expense of the mail packet service, more than £1,400,000, of course relieving taxpayers to that extent.—Vide Fifteenth Report of the Postmaster-General—the latest issued—p. 14).