n of uniform postal charges rests upon the facts: (1)
that the costs of collection, sorting, etc., are so large a part of
the costs of carrying a letter, that the real cost between John o'
Groats and Land's End does not differ from that between Hampstead and
Highgate by as much as might at first sight appear, (2) that the
charges in any case are very small; so that (3) the avoidance of the
small degree of taxes and bounties which the present system implies is
not worth the book-keeping expenses which differential charges would
involve. It should be obvious that these considerations apply to the
railways with a greatly diminished force. They might possibly justify
what is known as the "zone" system of charges, i.e. uniform rates
within certain narrow areas. But the notion of uniform rates
throughout Great Britain conjures up a vision of trains taking coal
from South Wales to Scotland, and others taking coal from Scotland to
South Wales, in accordance with the slightest preferences of the
consumers, and without regard to the extra real cost involved, on a
scale to which the "wastes of competition" afford no parallel. It
would in fact achieve the essential folly of "sending coals to
Newcastle." These considerations, however, are not what interest the
advocates of the postal principle. They seem to recommend the
obliteration or the confusion of the relations between price and cost
as a superior ideal. It is important to be clear what exactly this
ideal involves.

It involves, in the first place, as the whole argument of this volume
has gone to show, a less economical employment of our productive
resources; they would be diverted to ends of less utility, and so
produce less real wealth. But this is not the worst. There is plenty
of waste and maladjustment in our economic system at the present
time. The desirable relation of price to marginal cost is but
imperfectly attained. The further departures from this relation, which
would follow from any likely applications of the postal principle,
might not matter in themselves so very much. What is far more serious
is that the criteria of efficiency would become blunted, and the clear
aims of management would be confused in fog. It is essential that
every manager should be on the alert to eliminate waste and to improve
efficiency, that he should be always trying to secure the best
results; but how can he do this if he has no simple means of
_measuring_ what results are good and wha