that is
to say, related to the cost of providing the service. The justification
for a low rate rests for the most part on the same considerations as the
privileged rate for newspapers: the desirability of assisting the
education of the people and the utility of books for the purpose, the
comparatively low intrinsic value, and the impossibility of charging the
scale of rates applied to letters--even less possible in the case of
books than in the case of newspapers.

* * * * *

The exceptionally low rate for printed matter for the blind has been
given as a measure of philanthropy. By its means, although at some loss
to postal revenue, the effect of the disadvantage of bulk and weight in
such printed matter, which results from the affliction, is in a large
degree removed.[642]

* * * * *

The question of the rate to be applied to parcels is one of
considerable difficulty. While considerations of public utility would
probably make it undesirable for the State to derive a profit from the
business, they would hardly extend to the point of conducting a large
transportation business at a loss, and the results in England and
Germany show how important and difficult is the problem of fixing
remunerative rates. The rates for newspapers, samples, ordinary printed
matter, etc., have been accorded not solely with reference to the cost
of the service, but on grounds more or less political and social as
regards the fact of granting a privileged rate, and more or less
empirical as regards the fixing of the actual amount of the charge. For
the most part this method has answered sufficiently well, the reason
being that the cost per packet is comparatively small, and the
privileged traffic has not generally assumed large proportions relative
to the letter traffic. These empirical methods cannot, however, be
applied in the case of parcels. The expense of the service performed by
the Post Office is not, as with a letter, actually small, and confined
to that of collection at one end and delivery at the other end of the
journey, with a negligible cost (per packet) for transmission between
the points of origin and destination. Cost of transportation itself
becomes an appreciable item in respect of every parcel. For this
transportation the Post Office is in the main dependent on the railways,
and in the determination of its cost the principles determining ordinary
railway rates