ITEMS OF INTEREST August 20, 1910 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

In a statement detailing the reduction of $11,600,000 last year in the postal deficit, Postmaster–General Hitchcock shows that $2,900,000 of the sum represents economies in postoffice management, and nearly $1,000,000 a more businesslike handling of city delivery service. While this service was extended and the number of carriers increased during the year the reforms of management introduced cut down the general cost. Reorganization without curtailment of the rural delivery service was responsible for a saving of $1,900,000 and a reduction of $900,000 was credited to the star route service, including miscellaneous transportation of mail other than railways. The combine in the cost of handling the mails in post–offices and other branches of the service excepting railroad transportation was $6,150,000 and the amount of deficiency reduction traceable to the railway mail service was $5,450,000.

The state has canceled the grant of four hundred thousand acres of land to the Wyoming Development Company because of its failure to carry out the provisions of its franchise. The Wyoming company has experded two hundred thousand dollars on the project and will lose this amount. The cancelation of the grant is looked upon as a big victory for homesteaders. Four years ago the Government opened to settlement the Shoshone Indian reservation and distributed nearly five hundred thousand acres of lands along the Wind river valley to homesteaders. When the farmers took possession they discovered that the state had given all the water in the Wild river to the Wyoming Development Company, and that the homesteaders had to obtain water for irrigation purposes from that company.

Former President Roosevelt's proposition to make conservation a world–wide movement by a conference of nations is pronounced officially by the state department to be unfavored. Of the forty–nine governments represented diplomatically in Washington, which were invited just before the former President went out of office to join the movement, only nineteen have replied. The answer of some of the governments was of such a disinterested character that it was officially decided to carry the proposal no further.

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