Friendly critics declare that by reducing postage rates the Government is reducing taxation. -That is true to only a minor extent, because it affects, chiefly, the limited number of people who use the postal service to a great extent. It is intended to place the whole department on what is called a business basis. For that reason the money spent from revenue on new works in the past 20 years—and this was the deliberate decision of Parliament at the time is being regarded merely as a loan, and the users of the service are now called upon to pay interest and sinking fund -on the whole amount. The man who posts a letter to-day is helping to pay for the money which the taxpayers of 15 and 20 years ago willingly allotted to the new developments of the postal and telegraph services. This may be placing the department on a business footing, but it has also the appearance of funding past expenditure, and making it a charge for many years, the proceeds going to the consolidated revenue from which the money was originally obtained. Press critics, however, pass this aspect of the matter over lightly. It is sufficient for them to find that postage to-day is decreased 25 per cent. That, in the proper course of events, it should be reduced 50 per cent. is not their concern. During the war an additional halfpenny was added to postage as a war tax. Later the tax was repealed, but the postage was doubled—the charge - being 2d. a half-ounce. Now the charge is to be three half-pence a full ounce, which means a very considerable reduction, especially in the case of correspondence weighing over the half-ounce. A letter weighing two ounces would under the old rates cost 8d.; under the new ones the charge will be only 3d. All commercial and second-rate matter, we are told, will be reduced in proportion.
Dr. Page, the Treasurer, estimates that this change will cost the Department nearly £1,000,000 of revenue, but he has not allowed for the inevitable increase in business. The reduction is regarded as especially benefiting the city business men, and as a counterblast, to propitiate the country electors, concessions have been made in regard to long-distance telephone charges. It is perhaps enough to point out that the Treasurer estimates the value of these concessions at £85,000, which Country members will hardly concede balances the £1,000,000, which has been lifted from the shoulders of the cities.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.