OCR Text |
Show 4 -t- WASHINGTON, Feb. 13. 4- Large profits asserted to be ac- crulng to the publishers of mag- - azines and immense losses he- -f ing sustained by the govern- f ment in the transportation of -f magazines as second class mail matter at existing rates, aro made the basis of a statement 4- Issued tonight by Postmaster 4- General Hitchcock, In response 4- 4- to the attack made by the mag- 4- 4- azino publishers upon the 4 4 proposed increase of the post- 4- age rates on tho advertising 4 4- pages of the large magazines, 4 4- from one cent to four cents a 4- 4- pound. 4 4- 4 4-4- 444- 4-4- 44 4 Mr. Hitchcock makes it clear that the proposed new rate "does not affect newspapers of any kind, nor does it apply to periodicals mailing less than four thousand pounds of each Issue." In his statement, Mr. Hitchcock said In part: "In advertisements signed by 31 of the principal magazine and periodicals periodi-cals of the country. It is said, tho increased in-creased rate will drive a majority of tho popular magazines out of existence, exist-ence, and with them the enormous volume of profits of first class matter their advertising rates." Magazines' Large Profits. "The nubile should know that the charge is mado In tho face of tho fact that a part, if not all, of the periodicals pe-riodicals are realizing tremendous profits from tho high-priced advertising advertis-ing carried In their columns, which the government Is today carrying at the extraordinarily low rate of one cent per pound, and at a total cost of more than nine cents a pound. "In tho fiscal year 1010, ovor S00,-000.000 S00,-000.000 pounds of second class matter was carried through the public malls at a loss of ?G2.000,000 to tho government, govern-ment, while the returns from third class matter was practically self-sustaining, and on that of first and fourth class matler, there was a large saving of revenue, leaving the postal deficit for tho year not quite 5G.000.000. The groat burden of this postal deficit lies at the door of second class matter. mat-ter. Increase In Circulation. "A printed statement recently Issued Is-sued by the president of one of the principal magazines of New York city says that the profits of that ono magazine mag-azine for October, 1910, showed an increase over the corresponding month for 1000 of 100 per cent of advertisements, advertise-ments, and 151 per cent on subscriptions, subscrip-tions, making' a net annual profit for dividends and surplus, based on a circulation of 500,000 copies montly, of $34S,9S0. "Regarding the magazine business generally, this gentleman says that 'magazine publishers receive gross incomes as high as $G,000,000 in a single sin-gle year. Dividends amounting approximately ap-proximately to $1,000,000 yenrly have been made. "From this it Is apparent that the grounds of protest are the personal interest of the publishers and not the welfare of advertisers or the general reading public. "So far from being a discrimination, discrimina-tion, the proposed rate is a distinct step in the direction of equalization of postage rales." Various protests were registered today to-day against tho proposed Increase of rates on second class mail matter. |