If the fast freights and express are now taking thousands of tons of second-class matter from the government in competition with the one-cent a pound rate, how many thousands of tons more would they take from the government if the latter advanced its rate to four cents a pound? And what effect would the withdrawal of so vast a tonnage from the government’s second-class service have upon the deficit our solicitous Postmaster General has kept himself so exercised about--that $6,000,000, or, to be exact, using Mr. Hitchcock’s own figures, $5,881,481.95? That deficit, if converted into cash, would barely furnish parade money to our army for a month. If the Atlantic squadron undertook a junket with such financial backing its progress would probably end by rounding the Statue of Liberty at the entrance of New York harbor. If Mr. Hitchcock’s attempt to put up a four-cent rate on periodicals had succeeded, thus forcing the prominent publishers to find cheaper means of carriage and distribution, his $6,000,000 would have soared upward to a point making it worth very serious consideration. DEFICITS AFFECTED BY SECOND-CLASS TONNAGE. In this connection I desire to show that deficits in the federal postal service are largely governed by the tonnage of second-class matter carried, the greater such tonnage the smaller the deficit. To do this I shall take the liberty to quote from the “Inland Printer,” probably the most widely read periodical among the printing crafts, as it certainly is one of the best informed and most carefully edited journals of any in matters relating to the publication and distribution of periodical literature. The article speaks of several points pertinent to our subject and is so instructively written that I know my readers will appreciate it in its entirety. If the publishers of the periodical will pardon my wholesale appropriation of their article, I am confident my readers will do the same. The article is of date March, 1911, and was written by Wilmer Atkinson, whose permission I should also ask for reprinting it in toto: In 1860 the postal deficit was $10,652,543; in 1910 it was $5,848,566. The postage rate was four times greater in 1860 than now. Coming down twelve years to 1872 the total weight of second-class matter was that year less than 65,000,000 pounds. Now it is 817,428,141 pounds, more than twelve times greater. Then the postage rate was four times what it is now. Then the gross revenue was $21,915,426; now it is $224,128,657, more than ten times as much. Then there was no rural free delivery; now that system costs $36,923,737. Then there were no registered letters; now there are 42,053,574 a year. Then there were issued $48,515,532 of domestic money orders; now there are issued $547,993,641. Then postmasters were paid $5,121,665; now they are paid $27,514,362, and their clerks are paid $38,035,456.62.