From this sum should be deducted the amount received during the year for British postages, which are payable to that Government, under the postal convention of December, 1848 147,013 38 -------------- Leaving for the gross revenue of the year $5,552,971 48 Total expenditures 5,212,953 43 -------------- Excess of receipts $340,018 05 The expenditures of the current year are estimated at $6,019,809, the increase consisting in the additional service provided for, and in the increased rates sometimes paid on the new contracts. No reliable estimate of receipts from postage for the year can be made. The increase for the year ending June 30, 1847, was 11.27 per cent.; that for the year ending June 30, 1848, only 7.43 per cent.; and that for the year ending June 30, 1849, 14.20 per cent.; being an average, for the three years, of 10.96 per cent.; and the increase for the year ending June 30, 1850, excluding the balance in favor of Great Britain was 14.62 per cent. It is believed that the increase for the current year will be at least 11 per cent. over the receipts of last year: and this will give an aggregate revenue of $6,166,616, an excess of $146,807 over the estimated expenditures. The conveyance of foreign correspondence has become an important branch of the service. The means provided are 16 large steamships in actual service, with four more to be added under existing contracts. Efforts are in progress to arrange with foreign countries for the interchange of mails and for the uninterrupted transit of our correspondence in the mails of those countries to the countries beyond. The mail service in California and Oregon is still in an unsettled state: some suggestions are made for improving its details. The Postmaster General recommends a considerable reduction in the rates of postage: he advises that the inland letter postage be reduced to three cents, the single letter, when pre-paid, and be fixed at the uniform rate of five cents when not pre-paid; and also, that the Postmaster General be required to reduce this pre-paid rate to two cents the single letter, whenever it shall be ascertained that the revenues of the Department, after the reductions now recommended, shall have exceeded its expenditures by more than five per cent. for two consecutive fiscal years. He also recommends that twenty cents the single letter, be charged on all correspondence to and from the Pacific coast, South America, the Eastern Continent and its islands, and points beyond either, and ten cents the single letter on all other sea-going letters, without the superaddition of inland postage; and that the provision which imposes an additional half cent postage upon newspapers, sent more than one hundred miles, and out of the State where they are