The Long Island Company notified the Government that it would decline to carry the mails by the present expensive methods, unless Congress makes some provision for a more adequate compensation. A notification of similar import has been given by The New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company, the principal carrier in New England. Their position in this matter will undoubtedly be taken by other roads, because the same condition of inadequate compensation prevails upon hundreds of small railroads and mail routes, especially in the Southern and Western States. Notwithstanding these facts, a powerful interest, which commands the public ear and derives great profit from the one-cent-per-pound rate of postage, has, in order to divert public attention from itself, for years industriously and systematically circulated false statistics and false statements among the people regarding the railroad mail pay, and is now circulating them. The extent to which the public is being deceived regarding the railroad mail pay is disclosed daily. In a recent hearing before the Senate Committee on Post offices and Post-Roads, Senator Carter of Montana said: "We are all getting letters on this subject. I received the other day a letter from a very intelligent lady in Montana claiming that the Government is paying to the Northern Pacific Railway on that branch line for carrying the mail $97,000 per year. On inquiring at the Post Office Department, I find that the total compensation of the Northern Pacific Company for mail service on that line is $3,070 per year." This state of things was a sufficient reason for the Post Office Department to institute the present series of inquiries tending to show the space in passenger trains upon the railroads demanded and used by the Government for the mails in comparison with the space devoted to express and passenger service, and the relative rates of compensation in each class of service and the extent to which the roads are receiving for carrying the mails the cost to them of performing the service. In order to give these facts fair consideration, it is not necessary to admit that "space" is, or is not, a better and more workable basis for determining what is reasonable mail pay than "weight," nor to admit that the companies are only entitled to be paid by the Government for the service rendered to it the bare cost of rendering that service, that is, to receive back the train operating cost. Questions of speed and facilities furnished, and the preference character of the traffic and the exceptional value of the service, and other elements, must be considered as well as space and cost, but that is no reason why the relative proportion of space used and the relation of compensation to cost should not be ascertained and given due weight, in the consideration of the important question of what is adequate mail pay to the railroads.