.457
| | | | |=========|
Postcards |1,189,707| 53,450 | 17,220 |100,904|1,361,281| 0.353
Halfpenny Packets |1,721,781| 245,600 | 79,150 |132,254|2,178,785| 0.432
Newspaper Packets | 419,731| 359,450 | 115,858 | 22,610| 917,649| 1.063
Parcels |2,066,642| 1,555,302 | 152,428 |175,112|3,949,484| 7.091
--------------------+---------+-----------+----------+-------+---------+------

VIII

CONCLUSION

In relation to the rate of postage, the traffic of the Post Office falls
into two main groups: on the one hand light letters and packets
approximating to that type, and on the other the heavier packets and
parcels. This division corresponds with an important difference in the
practical working of the Post Office service, the task of providing for
the transmission of ordinary letters, hundreds of which can be conveyed
by foot-messenger without difficulty, being one entirely different from
that of providing for the transmission of larger packets, a few scores
of which would render necessary the use of a vehicle.

* * * * *

As to the transmission of letters, Sir Rowland Hill first perceived the
significance of the fact that with objects of light weight the cost of
conveyance, even over great distances, is small, and in his scheme of
reform he consciously applied this fact to the determination of the rate
of letter postage. This consideration remains; and as regards the
ordinary letters of business or private communication--the average
weight of which is less than half an ounce--the principle of uniformity
of rate irrespective of distance, which is now the characteristic of
letter postage, is well founded. Of the whole expense of conducting the
postal services, the expense of the actual conveyance of a letter from
place to place is not only small as compared with the cost of the
terminal services of collection and delivery, but is actually so small
in amount that no monetary system provides a coin of sufficiently small
value to make its collection a practical possibility. The uniform rate,
by making practicable the system of prepayment of postage by means of
adhesive labels, has, moreover, effected great economy in the working of
the service, and its simplicity is a boon to the public, the more so as
it has been possible to fit the common rate to a popular coin. A low
uniform rate is