Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/279

Rh is no government on the face of the earth deserving the name of civilized that has not adhered to what is justly styled the "Universal Postal Union." Nearly all countries have voluntarily abandoned their privilege of surcharging letters for remote destinations; so that, broadly speaking, the whole world may be described as one postal territory, while a five-cent stamp is the talisman that will secure for a letter conveyance, from any point where it can be posted, to any other at which it can be delivered by postal agency. For that very low payment it may go half round the globe; and if the person addressed is not there, it may complete the circle in order to find him. The great empire of China is preparing to fall in with the scheme, and has already adopted it to a considerable extent. Japan became a full member of the union many years ago.

The task, therefore, of the postal unification of the globe may be said to be all but accomplished. One or two difficulties in the working of the system remain to be smoothed away, and these are engaging the attention of the present congress. The most important question is that relating to "transit" postage. Some countries are so situated geographically that they are required to handle far more correspondence for other countries "in transit" than those countries have any opportunity of handling for them, while the situation of others, again, is the exact reverse. France, Italy, and Belgium are countries of the first class, a vast volume of correspondence for the continent of Europe passing through France and Belgium, and most of the correspondence of Europe with the East passing through Italy. Great Britain is an example on the other side, the postal business it does with foreign nations far exceeding the use made of its territory by mails in transit. The consequence is that every year in the settlement of claims and counter claims Great Britain has to pay out nearly half a million dollars more than she takes in.

Heretofore these claims and counter claims have been established by means of statistics taken periodically, and the question now before the congress is, Can these statistics, which entail a vast amount of labor, and more or less impede the postal service while they are in progress, be got rid of altogether? The German post office has a scheme by which this object can be accomplished. The plan is briefly this: As the taking of the statistics costs a great deal of labor, which, of course, means money, it is proposed that countries having a less claim in the general clearing than ten thousand dollars a year should forego it altogether in consideration of getting rid of trouble and expense to that (supposed) amount, and that the same amount should be deducted from all claims exceeding ten thousand dollars. It is estimated that the making of these deductions would decrease the total amount to be paid by the debtor countries by twenty-five per cent; and, taking the latest statistics as a basis, it is proposed simply to assess each debtor country accordingly, and pay over to each creditor country the amount to which it is entitled. If this scheme commends itself to the congress, the international postal system will have reached nearly the acme of simplicity, all postage accounts, between the different countries having been swept away into the limbo of the obsolete and the useless.

To how great an extent such an organization as the Universal Postal Union makes for civilization and for international unity it is needless to point out. It is one phase of the federation of mankind, and gives ground