No one will contend for a moment that there has been any net reduction in the cost of supplying railway mail services and facilities since 1901, the year in which the report of the Joint Commission to Investigate the Postal Service was made. In fact, all changes in railway operating costs, except those due to increased efficiency of organization and management, which can have little if any effect in connection with mail traffic, have been in the opposite direction. During the years characterized by these reductions the railways have been called upon continually to improve the character of their postal service and the Post Office Department will not deny that the railways are now rendering better, more frequent, and more expeditious postal service than in 1901, or any intermediate year, and are doing so at greatly increased cost to themselves. In view of these thoroughly substantiated facts the drastic reductions of recent years afford unanswerable proof that railway mail pay is now too low. IX. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT HAS NOT, IN THE LAST TWELVE YEARS, EFFECTED ANY REDUCTION IN THE ANNUAL TOTAL OF ITS EXPENSES FOR OTHER PURPOSES THAN RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION OR IN THE PROPORTION OF ITS REVENUES REQUIRED FOR SUCH OTHER EXPENSES, BUT THE WHOLE SAVING WHICH HAS NEARLY ELIMINATED THE ANNUAL DEFICIT OF THE DEPARTMENT IS REPRESENTED BY THE REDUCED PAYMENTS, PER UNIT OF SERVICE, TO THE RAILWAYS. That the recent savings of the postal service have been wholly at the expense of the railways is shown by the following: 1901. 1911. Postal gross receipts $111,631,193 $237,879,823 Postal expenses, all purposes; Total $115,554,921 $238,507,669 Per cent. of gross receipts 103.5 100.3 Railway mail pay; Total $38,158,969 $50,583,123 Per cent. of gross receipts 34.2 21.3 Postal expenses other than railway mail pay; Total $77,395,952 $187,924,546 Per cent. of gross receipts 69.3 79.0 This table shows that in the ten years from 1901 to 1911 the Post Office Department reduced its operating ratio between its total expenses and its gross receipts from 103.5 per cent. to 100.3 per cent., being a reduction of 3.2 points; but it also shows that this improvement was due solely to the fact that the ratio of railway mail pay expenses to gross receipts was reduced from 34.2 per cent. to 21.3 per cent., a reduction of 12.9 points, while the ratio of all other expenses to gross receipts increased from 69.3 per cent. to 79 per cent., an increase of 9.7 points. Thus the improvement of 3.2 points in the ratio for all expenses was due entirely to the greatly reduced ratio of railway mail pay, the heavy reduction in that respect exceeding by 3.2 points the very substantial increase in the ratio of all other expenses.