the year ending June 30, 1892, is
$848,341 less than the deficiency of the preceding year. The deficiency
of the present fiscal year it is estimated will be reduced to
$1,552,423, which will not only be extinguished during the next fiscal
year, but a surplus of nearly $1,000,000 should then be shown. In these
calculations the payments to be made under the contracts for ocean mail
service have not been included. There have been added 1,590 new mail
routes during the year, with a mileage of 8,563 miles, and the total
number of new miles of mail trips added during the year is nearly
17,000,000. The number of miles of mail journeys added during the last
four years is about 76,000,000, this addition being 21,000,000 miles
more than were in operation in the whole country in 1861.

The number of post-offices has been increased by 2,790 during the year,
and during the past four years, and up to October 29 last, the total
increase in the number of offices has been nearly 9,000. The number of
free-delivery offices has been nearly doubled in the last four years,
and the number of money-order offices more than doubled within that
time.

For the three years ending June 30, 1892, the postal revenue amounted to
$197,744,359, which was an increase of $52,263,150 over the revenue for
the three years ending June 30, 1888, the increase during the last three
years being more than three and a half times as great as the increase
during the three years ending June 30, 1888. No such increase as that
shown for these three years has ever previously appeared in the revenues
of the Department. The Postmaster-General has extended to the
post-offices in the larger cities the merit system of promotion
introduced by my direction into the Departments here, and it has
resulted there, as in the Departments, in a larger volume of work and
that better done.

Ever since our merchant marine was driven from the sea by the rebel
cruisers during the War of the Rebellion the United States has been
paying an enormous annual tribute to foreign countries in the shape of
freight and passage moneys. Our grain and meats have been taken at our
own docks and our large imports there laid down by foreign shipmasters.
An increasing torrent of American travel to Europe has contributed a
vast sum annually to the dividends of foreign shipowners. The balance
of trade shown by the books of our custom-houses has been very largely
reduced and in many years altogether extingui