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Show i POSTAL SERVICE BREAKING DOWN An excellent article on Ihe postoffiee shortcomings appears in the last issue of the New York Journal of Commerce After recognizing the fact thit ihere has been an unprecedented growth in the business of the posttffice department, the increase in! the New York City postoffiee being uno. third in a year, the Journal says : "There is, of course, no doubt that the postal service here and throughout the United States is being called upon to carry more and more mail each year. In this city the increase is great, as the figures show. And yet it is true thai there has been no increase in population as the census proves, and, of c.inrse. no increase m the area served. The problem which the poatofficc has had to face has been our whit h involved in-volved simply an increase m business. The strain on the facilities of the office has been no larger, and the conditions condi-tions no different from those which existed five years ago. The growth ot the volume fit buaineBS calls for better internal organization, larger staffs of clerks and curriers and greater efficiency. These have not been supplied. "Little can be made, however, of the fai t that there has been an abnormal increase in the volume of mail received and sent from New York. The deterioration of the service has beenas rapid elsewhere perhaps even greater. No organization organiza-tion is in better position to note the increase ur decline of postal efficiency than the newspapers of the country, and judging fnun the experience of some of them the service of the postoffiee is now about al low ebb. The postal evil is unquestionably widespread and vitiates the whole national organization it i-. indeed a national evil, since the nation's na-tion's business and intelligence depends directly on postal communication. " Few persons know or care much about the question whether congress is most responsible for postal conditions, or whether the blame must be laid chiefly at the door of the postoffiee department. They know that the weakness anil inefficiency is present, and they want it corrected. The make full allowance for the diffh nlties which followed in the train of the war and which applied to postoffpe personnel pist as to other branches of public and private service. The war, however, is now two years in the past, and the time has come to rectify defects. These, as already, stated, are worse than ever before, and their harm ia probably greater than at any time in the past " |