The application of this tariff resulted in many cases in considerable discrepancies between the amount charged and the service rendered. The improvements in the manufacture of paper and in the methods of printing, particularly the introduction of the rotary press, had cheapened the processes of production, and led to a great expansion of the newspaper trade. With this expansion came a more than proportionate expansion of the business of advertising. The result was that, as in England and America, the newspapers increased in bulk; but so far from there being a corresponding increase in price, there was in point of fact a very considerable decrease. Moreover, advertisements became a more important source of revenue than the subscriptions themselves. A rate of charge based on the selling price, which might have been reasonable when newspapers were produced under the old conditions, was totally inapplicable under the altered circumstances.[384] The financial results proved extremely unsatisfactory. From the causes indicated, the average weight of the individual copies of newspapers continued to increase, while at the same time the price (and with the price, the postage) continued to decrease. In 1897 the administration of the Imperial Post Office estimated that the total cost of the transmission of newspapers by post in Germany, for staff, post offices, transport, equipment, etc., was 6,178,362 M., or about 66/100 pf. per copy.[385] The number of newspapers transmitted by post in Germany was at that time about a thousand millions annually, and the total postage received in respect of them was less than 5 million M., or on the average about 1/2 pf. per copy;[386] in the case of a number of papers the postage was as little as 1/12 pf. per copy.[387] The annual loss to the administration on account of the newspaper traffic was therefore on the average 16/100 pf. per copy, or a total of about 1,600,000 M. a year. For many years the question was before the Budget Commission of the Reichstag, and a change soon followed the publication of this estimate. New rates, based on entirely new principles, were established in 1899. When the Act establishing the new rates was in preparation, the Imperial Post Office administration based their proposals mainly on the principle that the charges should cover the cost of the service rendered.[388] The original proposals to the Reichstag were accordingly calculated to secure an increased revenue of 1-1/4 million M. The Budget Commission, however, so modified the proposals as to reduce this amount to 300,000 M., and further modifications were made in the Reichstag itself, with the result that under the new rates the administration was left to work with an even greater loss than formerly.[389]