The other recommendation of the Penrose-Overstreet Commission, viz. that further statistics should be obtained with regard to second-class matter, was also adopted by Congress, and the statute authorizing the Commission on business methods also authorized the taking of statistics of the weight, number of pieces, and average haul of all classes of mail matter, separately, and the average load of all cars by which it was forwarded by railway.[343] With the statistics so obtained as a basis,[344] the department undertook the task, which, as stated by the Commission of 1906, had previously been impossible of performance, of calculating the actual working cost assignable respectively to the various classes of mail matter. A Committee, which was appointed in October 1908, and reported in November 1909, arrived at the conclusion that the cost of dealing with second-class mail matter was about 9 cents a pound. The whole subject was before the Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads of the House of Representatives in January and February 1910. Many representatives of the publishing interest attended and gave evidence, and the department's calculations were subjected to examination and criticism.[345] Congress and the Executive were still, however, unable to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion on the question, and on the 4th March 1911 a joint resolution of Congress authorized the appointment of a further Commission on second-class mail matter, this time not a Congressional Commission. A judge, the president of a university, and a business gentleman were appointed to the Commission, which held sessions in New York in the latter part of the year, and took evidence from the Post Office department and representatives of the publishing interests. They found that the data available were insufficient to enable them to determine the total cost to the Post Office of the services performed in respect of second-class mail matter; but they were able to estimate the cost in regard to certain items of the expenses of the Post Office. The cost under those headings, which must, of course, be less than the total cost, they found as 5-1/2 cents a pound for ordinary paid-at-the-pound-rate matter and 5 cents a pound for free and transient matter.[346] That part of the general expenses of the service which the Commission were unable to assign satisfactorily between the various classes of mail matter was estimated by the Post Office department to amount to over 2 cents a pound for second-class mail matter.[347] On this basis, of course, a heavy increase in the rate of postage would be warranted; but in view of the uncertainty of the effect of the competition of the express companies which would result from a large increase in the rate of postage, of the fact that the publishers' business established in faith of constancy of the postage would seriously suffer from such a sudden increase, and of the well-known