"Taking in view all these facts, as disclosed by the testimony filed herewith, we are of opinion that the 'prices paid * * * as compensation for the postal-car service' are not excessive, and recommend that no reduction be made therein so long as the methods, conditions, and requirements of the postal service continue the same as at present." MAIL RATES AND EXPRESS RATES. No feature of this question has been more persistently misrepresented than the relative value to the railroads of the mail business and the express business. As elsewhere shown, the express business is 52 per cent more valuable to the Burlington road than the Government mails on the mere basis of space used and facilities furnished in passenger trains. There are many other considerations which increase this disparity of value in favor of the express, but reference to them is omitted in order to direct public attention to the following statements of the Postmaster-General in his recent letter upon the subject: (_Congressional Record_, March 4, 1910, 61st Congress, Second Session, Vol. 45, No. 60, Page 2802.) LETTER OF THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL RELATIVE TO THE SERVICE RENDERED BY THE RAILROAD COMPANIES IN CONNECTION WITH THE MAILS AND WITH EXPRESS. "OFFICE OF THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL, "WASHINGTON, D.C., January 31, 1910. "Hon. JOHN W. WEEKS, _Chairman Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads, House of Representatives_. "MY DEAR SIR: In response to your inquiry as to the difference between the service rendered the Post Office Department by railroad companies in the carriage and handling of the mails, and that rendered express companies, I would state that from such information as we have been able to obtain in regard to the service rendered to express companies, the difference is substantially as follows: "The Post Office Department requires the railroad company to take the mail from the post office wherever the office is within 80 rods of the depot, and the company has an agent, and in many cases to perform the terminal service regardless of the distance between the post office and the station. Wherever the terminal service is taken up by the Department, by means of regulation or screen-wagon service, the contractor delivers the mail at a specified place at the depot, and from that point the railroad employees transport it to the cars, and if the amount is so great that it would impose a hardship upon the postal employees to load and store this mail, the railroad company is called upon to furnish porters to do the work. Where the mail messenger or contractor can drive direct to the cars, he does so. The express companies haul all of their matter to the railroad stations and put it in the cars, using their own employees and their own trucks.