eneral
considerations of the expediency of providing for the easy distribution
of intelligence, and the impossibility of charging newspapers with the
same rate as letters.

* * * * *

Merchants' and manufacturers' samples are not, of course, strictly
speaking, of the nature of correspondence, and their conveyance by post
represents in some aspects an expansion of function. The main function
of the Post Office is the distribution of letters, or, as it may be
expressed generally, the distribution of any species of communication
between persons, reduced to material form, whether as manuscript
letters, postcards or circular letters, printed or written, or even in
the form of newspapers. For samples of merchandise some relationship to
ordinary communications may perhaps be claimed. They are themselves
often the necessary complement of letters of business and are forwarded
in order to convey a precise notion of the commodities with which the
business is concerned, a purpose served much more effectively by the
small sample than by the descriptive letter, which would be the only
alternative. So far, then, as the Post Office is intended to assist the
transmission of information of whatever sort, the carriage of merchants'
samples is perhaps a legitimate part of its function, especially as the
encouragement of trade is no small part of its main function. The
transmission of small packets not inconvenient to handle and transport,
although essentially different in make-up from letters, was therefore a
natural development when advantage to commerce would result.

The impracticability of charging the ordinary letter rate, since such a
charge would have been prohibitory, which has influenced the newspaper
rate, is equally applicable to samples. The case for a lower rate was
strengthened by the consideration that commerce would benefit, and the
general considerations of the justice of a lower weight-rate for
moderately heavy packets and for packets of less intrinsic value,
applied to sample packets, no less than to newspapers, although this
point of view was not perhaps consciously adopted. Based on these
considerations, a special rate was given to samples, fixed more or less
arbitrarily, and without examination into the question of what rate
would be the lowest profitable rate for the business.

* * * * *

The basis of the book rate is only to a slight degree economic,