Total cost 212.10 ------ Profit 27.90 A local parcel post confined to rural delivery routes is also advocated at the rates given in Exhibit No. 3. The Department favors the establishment of this special service because of its ability to render it with great advantage to the farmer, the country merchant, and other patrons of the routes, as the necessary machinery (over 38,000 routes now regularly covered by rural carriers) is in operation. There are some 15,000,000 people living on these routes, which shows the vast possibilities of the rural service. It has been estimated that if but three packages of the maximum weight were handled each trip on the rural routes now established the resulting revenue, even at the low rates given, would more than wipe out the postal deficit. The increased cancellations would automatically advance the salaries of postmasters of the fourth class, and the remaining revenue, which would be clear gain, would be of great assistance in making the rural service self-sustaining. The rural service will, in all probability, cost the government this year $34,000,000, an increase of $10,000,000 over last year. The history and advantages of the rural delivery should be understood by our people. There is a feeling in many quarters that it is an extravagance and an unnecessary drain upon the postal revenues. The first rural route was established in the latter part of 1896, $14,840 being expended for rural delivery during that fiscal year. At that time the postal deficit was $11,411,779. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 1907, the expenditures for rural delivery aggregated $26,671,699, while the postal deficit showed a decrease, as compared with 1897, of $4,800,000, the deficit amounting to $6,653,282. This would seem to show that while the expense incurred for maintaining rural delivery is great, yet the rural delivery has been instrumental in increasing the general postal receipts. However, its benefits to our people can not be measured in dollars and cents. That a local parcel post would be of material advantage to the retail merchant in competition with mail-order houses is seen at once when it is pointed out that the latter, at the proposed general parcel post rate of 12 cents a pound, would be obliged to pay $1.32 for sending an 11-pound package to a rural route patron, a difference in favor of the local storekeeper of about 10 cents a pound, or $1.07 on an 11-pound package. Letters and petitions for the extension of the parcel post are being received from all sections of the country. Many commercial bodies formerly opposed to any action of this kind are on record as being heartily in favor of it.