considerations, the grounds advanced in the case of
light letters will not justify uniformity of rate irrespective of
distance for packets of considerable weight, which necessarily involve
appreciable cost for transportation. From the financial point of view,
the uniform rate is, moreover, inapplicable to any class of traffic not
secured to the Post Office by monopoly, since private undertakings will
always step in and take away the profitable sections.

For heavy parcels a uniform rate cannot be justified. There are,
however, certain considerations not purely economic which may be held to
justify a uniform rate for small parcels, especially if it be held that
the State may conduct such a business for the advantage of the public,
and abandon to some extent ordinary commercial balancing of cost and
revenue.

Simplicity, afforded in a high degree by the uniform rate, facilitates
the administration and practical conduct of Post Office business, and
is, therefore, desirable, even if a little unjust. Complicated rates are
an unfailing source of irritation to the public as well as a source of
embarrassment to the staff, and there is not much doubt that one feature
of the parcel post which commends it to the public favour is the
simplicity of its rates.[649] There is, moreover, to be considered the
view that it is no part of the duty of the Post Office to provide
services in towns or districts for which private industry gives adequate
services, but rather to cover the whole country, so that the public may
always have ready to hand a means of forwarding small packages of goods
to friends or relatives, or traders to customers, in other parts of the
country. Such a service has many features which distinguish it from
business undertakings of the ordinary type. In this way uniform rates
may prove justified; since if in regard to any local service, or the
service between any two points, the uniform rate, which must necessarily
in certain cases yield considerable profit, is found burdensome, it is
in all such cases open to private industry to provide the remedy. In the
case of light parcels the cost of the services of collection and
delivery is much greater than that of conveyance; and the variation of
the total cost with distance of transmission is small proportionately.
The uniform rate can therefore be fixed near the level of the cost. But
even for such parcels it is economically unsound. It cannot be fixed at
a really low level,