Show FOREIGN PARCELS POST With the opening of the year a parcels post system went into effect between this country and Venezuela and New Zealand This welcome event Indicate progress In the right direction but It likewise calls attention atten-tion to the comparatively trivial dimensions di-mensions of our present parcels post arrangements with foreign countries S With the exception of Germany these extend to no firstclass power They arc confined instead to Islands chiefly the West Indies but not Including Cubato Mexico and Newfoundland and to certain of the South American countries meager list in its entirety so far as national importance goes That the extension of parcels post arrangements to be coextensive with the limits of the International Postal Union Is a reasonable ideal to aim at n Is no less true than that such nn extension ex-tension of so convenient reliable and economical an agency of international exchange would afford great stimulus I to our productive Interests as well as great accommodation to individuals A Chicago manufacturer was recently re-cently solicited to dispatch a three pound parcel of samples to Turkey But when it was found that It would cost letter rates or 480 to send thlB by mal and 220 to send it by express these charges were deemed prohibitive and the parcel was not dispatched By parcels post It could have been sent for 36 cents Not long ago an eight pound package from London was de livered in Chicago with forwarding charges at 2 S3 and it had been six weeks in transit By parcels post it should have arrived In less than half that time and at a cost of 96 cents or practically onethird of the amount paid paidI is frequently S charged that the backwardness of Postal our department In falling to extend the parcels post system to important countries Is due to the Influence of powerful carrying companies com-panies which now benefit by such excessive ex-cessive charges a those Indicate I Is not pleasant to entertain such an Idea but neither It pleasant to consider con-sider that department lacking In enterprise needs en-terprise orin perception S of public The popular demand concerning the I existence of which there can be no doubtfor the extension of foreign parcels par-cels post arrangements is one which the postal authorities at Washington ought to take aggressively and sympathetically sympa-thetically In hand Chicago mra |