NOTE 4--The example of the United Kingdom substantiates the last surmise. For in the United Kingdom the railroads, all privately owned, are given 55% of the total charges on all _parcel-post parcels_ carried by them, irrespective of distance. (And there is evidence that this remuneration is expressly considered too generous in the United Kingdom.) Now, the parcel-post charges in the United Kingdom are considerably lower than the express charges in the United States not only absolutely, but also relatively to the different values of money in the two countries. But the railroads' service in carrying a parcel-post package, aside from furnishing mail cars, is no more expensive than their service of carrying an express package of the same weight. If the railroads of the United States were to carry parcels at 55% of the _parcel-post charges_ or at that percentage of the parcel-post charges in this country which, considering the difference of conditions in the two countries, would correspond to 55% of the parcel-post charges in the United States, they obviously would be receiving much less than 50% of the _total express charges_. Nor should the fact that express packages on the whole may travel farther and weigh more than parcel-post packages invalidate the argument, for the present contracts with the railroads have not been altered to any extent so as to meet any such condition due to the advent of the parcel-post--in the year before the parcel-post was established the railroads got 49% of the net express charges and in 1917, 51%. So that the question as to whether the railroads of the United States obtain on the whole too high a proportion of the express rates because of unduly high percentage clauses in the express company-railroad company contracts is, if not thus answered, at least illumined. BIBLIOGRAPHY ADAMS EXPRESS COMPANY, et al--Response in Interstate Commerce Commission Docket No. 4198, opposing decrease in express rates (1911). CENSUS BUREAU-- Census of 1890: Transportation in the United States. Census of 1890, Bulletin: Transportation Business in the United States (Part II), Transportation by Express Companies (1894). Express business in the United States (1907). CHANDLER, WILLIAM H.--The Express Service and Rates (1914). CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 1911 AND 1912--Speeches, bills, etc., concerning the parcel-post and express service. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE-- Annual Reports, Secretary of Agriculture, 1917 and 1918. Farmers' Bulletins Nos. 594, 688, 703, 922, 930 and others relating to marketing by parcel-post. FIELD, ARTHUR S.--Rates and Practises of Express Companies; and The Express Charges Prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission, American Economic Review, 1913, volume 3, pages 314 and 831. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION-- Annual Reports, Statistics of Express Companies, 1909-1918.