A simplification of rates and regulations is always attended by a diminution of the difficulties of administration, by economy of actual working, and by convenience to the public. In connection with the proposed parcel post the department, with these objects in view, suggested the abolition of the separate class for printed matter, and its amalgamation with the parcel post matter, thus reducing the number of classes of mail matter to three. The Chairman of the Senate Sub-Committee adopted this suggestion, and embodied it in the Bill which he prepared and introduced in the Senate on the 16th May 1912, retaining, however, a rate of 1 cent per ounce up to 4 ounces, in order to provide for circular matter which, under the third-class rate, passed at 1 cent for 2 ounces. This was apparently a doubling of the rate, but as the average weight of circulars is under 1 ounce, in actual practice the great bulk of them would continue to pass at 1 cent. This provision would, however, raise the rate on all catalogues and circulars weighing more than 1 ounce; and although 90 per cent. of the number of pieces of third-class matter actually posted are under 4 ounces in weight and would have fallen under the proposed special rate, and 50 per cent. are under 1 ounce in weight and would have passed for the same amount as under the existing third-class rate, viz. 1 cent, this provision of the Bill was strenuously opposed by printers and catalogue houses. Not regarding the consolidation of the two classes as in any way essential to the establishment of a parcel post system, the Senate Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, when they came to consider the Bill, decided to eliminate that feature. In general this Bill represented the conclusions of the Sub-Committee, and, apart from the foregoing change, was substantially accepted by the Senate Committee. The only other amendments made were an increase of the number of zones from six to eight, with the view of "protecting the local merchant in the field of his business," and a slight raising of the rates for the shorter distances, partly from a fear that the rates proposed in the Bill would not be self-sustaining, and partly from a desire further to protect the local retail merchant against the catalogue houses. The essential provisions of the Bill, as thus amended, were embodied in the Post Office Appropriation Bill for the fiscal year 1913, were accepted by Congress, and became law on the 24th August 1912. The actual zones and rates fixed were as follows:-- First zone: All territory within quadrangle or unit of area and every contiguous quadrangle. Second zone: All units of area outside the first zone within a radius of, approximately, 150 miles from the centre of a given unit of area. Third zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 300 miles. Fourth zone: The same within a radius of, approximately, 600 miles.