I venture to recommend, however, that a reduction of the fees be made on international money orders. The present schedule of fees on such orders is as follows: being 13 per cent. on the round sums constituting the several divisions in the schedule, and which yielded last year a revenue of $104,215.47. If the fees were reduced to i per cent. on such round sums the revenue would be diminished by one-third of the fees, amounting, during the last fiscal year, to $47,142.18, a reduction which would be a substantial advantage to remitters, and yet would not be large enough to hazard a loss to the Department in the transaction of international moneyorder business, which last year, with a deduction of the above-named amount from its receipts, would still have yielded a revenue of $57,073.29. I respectfully recommend, also, that section 1 of the act of March 3, 1883, which provides that the postmaster who shall issue a postal note shall make the same payable to bearer at any money-order office which the remitter thereof may select, be so amended as to authorize the payment of postal notes to the bearer, when duly receipted by him, at any money-order office. Such an amendment was inserted in a bill (H. R. 4907) introduced at the first session of the Forty-eighth Congress by Mr. Bingham, which was favorably reported upon by the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads, but failed to pass. The following extract from the committee's report will best explain the reasons in favor of the suggested modification of existing law: Section 2 of the bill extends the usefulness and broadens the field for the more general acceptance of the postal note, without additional expense to either the remitter or the Government. The Post-Office Department, after an experience of some months, is of the opinion that postal notes would be more convenient, and therefore give greater satisfaction to the public, if they could be drawn payable to the bearer at any money-order office. The Postmaster-General expressed this view in a letter to the Attorney-General under date of November 7 last (1883), and at the same time requested the opinion of that officer as to whether under the present law (act of March 3, 1883) the bearer of a postal note could have the privilege of presenting it for payment at any money-order office, or whether he would by that law be restricted to a single moneyorder office designated in the body of the note. The Attorney-General's reply states that the provision of the present law is express, that the remitter (purchaser) and not the payee (bearer) shall designate the place of payment. This designation must of course be indicated in the note by the postmaster who issues it, and it cannot thereafter be altered. Good reasons exist why this designation need not be made at all, and the holder of a postal note be left free to obtain payment thereof at any money-order office. If a mistake has been made by the purchaser of a postal note in the designation of the paying office which is not discovered until after the note has been issued, the purchaser's only remedy is to obtain a repayment of the erroneous note and to buy another at the expense of an additional fee. It freqently happens that a postal note drawn upon one money-order office is, through inadvertence, presented and actually paid at another. A postal note thus paid is not such a voucher for the postmaster who paid the money as can be accepted by the accounting officer (the Auditor), and troublesome correspondence must be resorted to in order to adjust the matter so that the paying postmaster shall receive proper credit. For example, a postal note drawn upon Chicago, Ill., may be paid at Boston, Mass. The postmaster at Boston can obtain no credit for paying a note drawn on Chicago, so that the note must, through the medium of the Post-Office Department, be sent either to the issuing postmaster or the postmaster actually drawn upon, to be treated by him as properly paid. The latter, having thus obtained a credit, may issue a new postal note in favor of the postmaster at Boston, who must suffer a loss of three cents for the fee thereon. All difficulty of this kind would be obviated if postal notes could be paid at any money-order office. The proposed legislation would save the clerical labor now necessary in designating an office of payment on the face of each note, of recording the name thereof on the corresponding stub, and of reporting the same to the Post Office Department in the postmaster's weekly statement of money-order business-a considerable item. It would, furthermore, facilitate the payment of postal notes, because there would no longer be any necessity, as there now is, to examine each note presented to see that it is properly drawn on the money-order office of which payment is demanded. It may be added that during the last two years this office has been advised of 2,923 cases of postal notes paid at offices other than those upon which they were drawn. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Hon. Wм. F. VILAS, Postmaster-General. C. F. MACDONALD, Superintendent of Money-Order System. APPENDIX. A.-Tabular statement showing operations of the domestic money-order system during each year since its establishment, November 1, 1864, up to June 30, 1885. $1, 313, 577 08 77, 361, 690 75 Total.... 1,385, 410, 569 68 1, 383, 394, 767 89 B.-Statement of duplicate money-orders issued by the Department during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1885. |
