ght and
would have fallen under the proposed special rate, and 50 per cent. are
under 1 ounce in weight and would have passed for the same amount as
under the existing third-class rate, viz. 1 cent, this provision of the
Bill was strenuously opposed by printers and catalogue houses. Not
regarding the consolidation of the two classes as in any way essential
to the establishment of a parcel post system, the Senate Committee on
Post Offices and Post Roads, when they came to consider the Bill,
decided to eliminate that feature.

In general this Bill represented the conclusions of the Sub-Committee,
and, apart from the foregoing change, was substantially accepted by the
Senate Committee. The only other amendments made were an increase of the
number of zones from six to eight, with the view of "protecting the
local merchant in the field of his business," and a slight raising of
the rates for the shorter distances, partly from a fear that the rates
proposed in the Bill would not be self-sustaining, and partly from a
desire further to protect the local retail merchant against the
catalogue houses.

The essential provisions of the Bill, as thus amended, were embodied in
the Post Office Appropriation Bill for the fiscal year 1913, were
accepted by Congress, and became law on the 24th August 1912. The actual
zones and rates fixed were as follows:--

First zone: All territory within quadrangle or unit of area and
every contiguous quadrangle.

Second zone: All units of area outside the first zone within a
radius of, approximately, 150 miles from the centre of a given unit
of area.

Third zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 300 miles.

Fourth zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 600 miles.

Fifth zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 1,000
miles.

Sixth zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 1,400
miles.

Seventh zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 1,800
miles.

Eighth zone: All units of area outside the seventh zone.

The rates were:--

On rural route: 5 cents for the first pound or fraction of a pound,
and 1 cent for each additional pound or fraction of a pound.

Each additional
First Pound. Pound.
First zone 5 cents. 3 cents.
Second zone 6 "