But that, of course, was “a few years ago.” Yet, stay! On page 264 of the 1910 report of the Postoffice Department, I find that the Oceanic Line--a line of United States register--carried to and from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands 7,622 pounds of letters and 159,483 pounds of prints. This was carried under a “contract” and the Oceanic people were paid $46,398 for the service--_for carrying about 88 tons of mail matter_. Looks like a good “deficit” producer, does it not? But there is another queer thing about this Tahiti mail contract. Note (1) on page 263, to which the report refers readers, says steamers of United States register _not under contract_ are paid 80 cents a pound for carrying letters and 8 cents a pound for carrying prints. Figuring up the Oceanic’s service at those rates gives as result only $18,856.24. So it can readily be seen there is something in a “contract”--some contracts, anyway. On the same page (264), I find that another ship, one of the Union Line and under foreign register, touches at Tahiti in making New Zealand. It carried 2,713,850 grams (about 5,970 pounds) of letters and 58,926,887 grams (about 129,639 pounds) of prints--within 16 tons the weight the Oceanic people carried--and received only $7,781.54 for the service. These vessels of foreign register are paid about 35 cents a pound for letter weights and 4½ cents for print weight. Figuring up the weights hurriedly at the named rates, I find that the Union folks were entitled to $7,923.40, or some $142 _more_ than was paid them. The Oceanic folks, you will remember, were paid $46,398 when at _open_ carriage rates of pay to vessels of United States register they earned only $18,856.24. Looks a little off color, does it not? But we must remember that Tahiti is an island. Must be an island of vast importance. It requires the shipment of 88 tons of mail matter in a year--a whole year--and our government pays $46,398 haulage on it. Something over 79 of those 88 tons of mail was printed weight, too. What great printers and publishers those Tahitians and Marquesans must be! Or was that print stuff of United States origin? Catalogues and franked and penalty matter, I wonder? At any rate there is the “contract” in 1910 as an evidence that some one here is doing, or has done, a little turn toward “burning” postal revenues and helping, in a small way, to keep a postal “deficit” in evidence. A deficit, you know, shows that the revenues of the department are too low, too small, to permit the establishment of an efficient, cheap parcels post, or so the railroad and express raiders would have us think.