gitation in favour of a parcel post service continued; and
when in 1878 a large number of the railway companies announced that they
proposed to convey small parcels over any part of their lines at low
uniform rates, attention was called to the fact in the public Press, and
suggestions made that the Post Office should co-operate by undertaking
the delivery of the parcels. The official view was now somewhat more
favourable to the idea. An international parcel post service had been
established in 1880 in connection with the Universal Postal Union, and
this fact had strengthened public opinion in favour of a parcel post
service in this country. It was recognized that such a service would
afford undoubted advantages to the public, especially in rural
districts. It would provide facilities which private enterprise had not
seen fit to undertake. It would provide a service reaching to all parts
of the country, for which there was no other equally suitable machinery.

The Post Office could not, however, in establishing a parcel post
service, act as freely as in its arrangements for the conduct of the
letter service. The conveyance of the parcels from place to place was
likely to prove a serious undertaking, and for such conveyance the Post
Office was dependent on the railway companies. In the case of letter
mails the cost for conveyance is a very minor part of the total expenses
of the service, but when negotiations with the railway companies were
begun it was soon found that such would not be the case with parcel
mails. The companies, regarding the parcel traffic as to a large extent
their own proper business,[407] were not disposed to agree to easy
terms, and there was the further difficulty that numerous companies had
to be satisfied, since it was desired to establish the system under an
agreement which should include all the principal companies.[408] From
the first, the question of the remuneration of the companies was
approached from a point of view totally different from that in which
their remuneration for the ordinary letter mails was regarded. Letter
mails are conveyed as entities, and the company have never been
concerned with the number of letters enclosed in the mail or the amount
of postage paid. They arrange for the conveyance of a given number of
mails, and are remunerated accordingly. But with parcels the question
was approached as one for the determination of just remuneration of the
companies for conveying, not