aded, or he has as much
business as he can reasonably attend to. This is on the supposition that
all the business is to come from one place. But if there are intermediate
or contiguous places whose patronage can be obtained to swell the amount
of business, there should be an equitable apportionment of this advantage,
a part to go to the carrier for his additional trouble and fair profits,
and a part to go towards reducing the general rate of charge. If, however,
the carrier has an interest in a place five miles beyond, which he thinks
may be built up by having an express running into it from Boston, although
the present amount of business is too small to pay the cost, and if, for
considerations of his own advantage, he resolves to run his wagon to that
place at a constant loss for the present, looking to the rise of his
property for ultimate remuneration, it would not be just for him to
insist, that the people who intend to establish an express and support it
for themselves, shall yet pay an increased or exorbitant price for their
own parcels, in order to pay him for an appendage to the enterprise, for
which they have no occasion, and as such he himself undertakes for
personal considerations of is own.

And if he should be obstinate on this point, they would just let him take
his own way, and charge prices to suit himself, while they proceeded to
make a new bargain with another carrier, who would agree to accommodate
them at reasonable prices adjusted on the basis of their patronage. And if
an appeal should be made to their sympathy or charity, to help the growing
hamlet, they would say, that it was better to give charity out of their
pockets than by paying a high price on their parcels; for then those would
give who were able and willing, and would know how much they gave. This
covers the whole case of arranging postage as a matter of equal contract.
The just measure of charge is, the lowest rate at which the work can be
afforded by individual enterprise on the best self-supporting routes.
Plainly, no other rate can be kept up by open competition on these routes.
And if these routes are lost by competition, you must charge
proportionably higher on the rest, which will throw the next class of
routes into other hands, and so on, until nothing is left for you but the
most costly and impracticable portions of the work.

The only material exception to this rule would be, where there is an
extensive and complicated combinati