I go back still further to 1876 when the postage rate on newspapers was 4 times greater than now, when the sale of stamps was less than one-eleventh what it is now, _and while deficits were larger_. The highest point reached in the weight of second-class matter previous to the institution of the present rate, was 101,057,963 pounds. It has been repeatedly declared officially that second-class matter originates large quantities of other classes of mail, and in the official figures we have the proof. While population increased from 1885 to 1910 only a little more than double, the revenue from the sale of stamps, etc., and the weight of second-class matter, each increased over 5 times. _No other possible reason can be assigned for the increase in stamp mail, and the tremendous development of every branch of the postal business 5 times faster than the growth of population, than the increased circulation and influence of the newspaper and periodical press, brought about by the reduced postage rate._ SECOND-CLASS MATTER WOULD HAVE LONG AGO WIPED OUT ALL DEFICITS AND CREATED AN ENORMOUS ANNUAL SURPLUS HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE GREAT BURDENS WHICH WEIGHED THE SERVICE DOWN. There would have been a surplus, instead of a deficit, every year since 1901, had allowance been made for the extraordinary cost of free rural delivery, and in 1910, the surplus would have been $31,075,170.12. If also allowance had been made for free government matter, other than the Postoffice Department’s own free matter, being sent stamped as first-class matter is, the surplus for 1910 would have been $51,075,470.12 and these figures like all others here given, are from official reports. A VAST INCREASE OF EXPENDITURES. _Not only did stamp mail, under the stimulus of the steady and enormous increase of second-class matter, enable the Department to meet the cost of rural delivery while reducing the deficit, but it also met and overcame the immense increase of the annual expenditures for railroad transportation which grew from $33,523,902.18 in 1901 to $44,654,515.97 in 1910: of salaries to postmasters, assistants and clerks which grew from $32,790,253.39 in 1901 to $65,582,533.57 in 1910, of the railway mail service which grew from $9,675,436.52 to $19,385,096.97 in 1910, and of the city delivery service which grew from $15,752,600 in 1901 to $36,841,407.40 in 1910. In these four items alone there was an increase in annual expenditures in the last ten years of $74,721,361.82, for which second-class matter was only in a very limited way responsible._