s ideas in the regulation of our postal rates.

Experience and observation have demonstrated that certain improvements
in the organization of the Post-Office Department must be secured before
we can gain the full benefit of the immense sums expended in its
administration. This involves the following reforms, which I earnestly
recommend:

There should be a small addition to the existing inspector service,
to be employed in the supervision of the carrier force, which now
numbers 13,000 men and performs its service practically without the
surveillance exercised over all other branches of the postal or public
service. Of course such a lack of supervision and freedom from wholesome
disciplinary restraints must inevitably lead to imperfect service. There
should also be appointed a few inspectors who could assist the central
office in necessary investigation concerning matters of post-office
leases, post-office sites, allowances for rent, fuel, and lights, and
in organizing and securing the best results from the work of the 14,000
clerks now employed in first and second class offices.

I am convinced that the small expense attending the inauguration of
these reforms would actually be a profitable investment.

I especially recommend such a recasting of the appropriations
by Congress for the Post-Office Department as will permit the
Postmaster-General to proceed with the work of consolidating
post-offices. This work has already been entered upon sufficiently to
fully demonstrate by experiment and experience that such consolidation
is productive of better service, larger revenues, and less expenditures,
to say nothing of the further advantage of gradually withdrawing
post-offices from the spoils system.

The Universal Postal Union, which now embraces all the civilized world
and whose delegates will represent 1,000,000,000 people, will hold its
fifth congress in the city of Washington in May, 1897. The United States
may be said to have taken the initiative which led to the first meeting
of this congress, at Berne in 1874, and the formation of the Universal
Postal Union, which brings the postal service of all countries to every
man's neighborhood and has wrought marvels in cheapening postal rates
and securing absolutely safe mail communication throughout the world.
Previous congresses have met in Berne, Paris, Lisbon, and Vienna, and
the respective countries in which they have assembled have made generous
provision for their a