The public mind seems unusually acute on the subject of free mailing facilities, and there is much criticism in the public press of the continuance of the franking privilege and the use of the penalty envelope, the suggestion being often made that the same should be abolished and that this department should receive proper credit in accounting for matter now being carried free. It is therefore suggested that consideration be given to the desirability of eliminating the transportation of mail matter under frank or penalty clause, in order that the Postoffice Department may receive due and proper credit for the tremendous, and in some part possibly unnecessary, services which it is performing free, to its apparent financial embarrassment. It is probably true that the use of the penalty envelope and the franking privilege is availed of with undue liberality, even if not actually abused, as is often alleged; that is to say, the same care is not taken to confine the mailings of governmental and congressional matter to only that which is necessary as would undoubtedly be the case if there were a strict accountability for their use. It will be noted that Mr. Britt in the foregoing covers other than second-class mail matter. Taking the figures of his estimate of the volume of free franked and penalty matter of the second-class (51,000,000 pounds in round numbers, which I believe is so conservative as to be far below the actual tonnage), then the various other departments of the government are raiding the revenues of the Postoffice Department to the extent of $510,000 for the carrying and handling of their second-class mail alone. That is, they are requiring the Postoffice Department to render to them without pay or credit over a half-million dollars’ worth of service a year. That is figured at the 2nd class rate of 1 cent a pound. If Mr. Britt’s own estimate, on another page of the same report, that it cost the Postoffice Department 9 cents a pound to transport and handle second-class mail, is correct, which as previously shown it is not, then other departments of the government would be raiding the postal service revenues--revenues which private individuals, firms, corporations and governments subordinate, now alone pay--to the extent of more than $4,500,000 a year. It must be borne in mind by the reader, however, that Mr. Britt’s estimate of 51,000,000 pounds (a round figure) of second-class matter carried and handled free by his department for other departments of the federal government does not represent the total of service rendered those other departments for which the Postoffice Department received neither pay nor credit. Far from it.