to meet the extra cost of transportation is made on
parcels addressed to or posted at offices in certain outlying districts
when the parcels have to be conveyed on stage routes over 100 miles in
length.

Statistics of the number of parcels dealt with are not taken by the
Canada Post Office.

* * * * *

V. THE SUPPLEMENTAL SERVICES

In connection with the transmission of postal packets, other services,
which are supplemental, and in some cases complementary, have been
added, e.g. registration and insurance, in order that senders may
protect themselves against loss or damage of packets in the post.[733]
Closely allied to the transmission of ordinary letters is the
transmission of money from place to place, and from early times the Post
Office has also undertaken this function for appropriate fees. This is
the money order and postal order business. These services apply only to
a very small proportion of the total number of packets posted, and may
in general be regarded as exceptional.[734]

In addition to these supplemental functions, the Post Office has usually
been called upon to undertake services which have little or no relation
to the transmission of letters from place to place. Thus, the British
Post Office conducts a Savings Bank, undertakes the issue of certain
local taxation licences (gun and dog licences, etc.) on behalf of the
Inland Revenue Department and local authorities, pays Old Age Pensions,
sells stamps on behalf of the National Health and Unemployment Insurance
Commissioners, exhibits certain Government notices in the windows of
post offices, and, in general, stands ready to perform any service to
which, by reason of its ramifications reaching to the remotest part of
the kingdom, it may be specially well adapted.[735] In many countries
the Post Office has assumed the control of the telegraph or telephone
systems, or both--this, of course, largely in consideration of the
close affinity between the essential character of those
services--transmission from place to place of information and
intelligence--and the primary function of the Post Office; and in
consideration of the tendency of those services, like the letter
service, to develop on monopolistic lines.[736] In continental countries
the Government control of the telegraphs has been regarded as a military
necessity.[737] The assumption of these functions has no necessary
relation to the rates charged for the tran