On a number of routes postal car pay has been allowed for running full cars in one direction only, classing such routes as half-lines. This obliges the railroads to move the car in the opposite direction without pay, the small additional compensation of less than 4 cents per mile run received in one direction being entirely inadequate to compensate the road for the empty haul--to say nothing of allowing anything for moving it in direction for which pay is received. To illustrate: The Union Pacific Railroad in one case between Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Ogden, Utah, 1,003 miles, receives no pay for handling east-bound a 60-foot mail car, which is paid for west-bound only, six mail cars being required on this line. The R. P. O. pay per car mile, including movement in both directions, is only 2.24 cents, or about what would be received for transporting a single passenger, although a standard passenger coach has a capacity for 70 passengers. In connection with the railway postoffice, an item not often considered is the value of transportation furnished clerks in the railway mail and compartment cars. Figuring this at 2 cents per mile, which is about the lowest passenger fare, the total value of this transportation for clerks in railway postoffice cars would be $8,600,000 per annum, or $4,000,000 more than the railroads receive for the handling of these cars, and the value of transportation in the case of apartment cars would be $4,000,000 per annum additional. In addition to this, a large amount of free transportation is required annually by the Postoffice Department for inspectors and other officers of the Department. The Postoffice Department issues annually about six hundred traveling commissions to postoffice inspectors and other postal officials, and requires railroad companies to honor such commissions for free transportation on all trains on all lines on which mails are carried. In some cases these commissions are issued to Government officials whose official duties are in no way connected with the transportation of mails on railroads. The railroads have no control whatever over the issuance of these commissions and can not even secure from the Postoffice Department a list of them, the Department holding that the list is confidential. These commissions are frequently used for personal travel in violation of the rulings of the Interstate Commerce Commission. In brief, the Postoffice Department in effect arbitrarily issued about six hundred annual passes over every mail carrying railroad in the United States, which is equivalent to about 200,000 annual passes. POSTAL DEFICIT.