ITEMS OF INTEREST December 28, 1912 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

The regulations for the parcels-post provide that parcels merchandise, including farm and factory products (but not books and printed matter) of almost every description up to eleven pounds in weight and measuring as much as six feet in length and girth combined, except those calculated to do injury to the mails in tansit, may be mailed at any post-office for delivery to any address in the country. Delivery will be made to the homes of people living on rural and star routes, as well as those living in cities and towns where there is delivery by carrier. Where there is at present no delivery by carrier the parcels will go to the post-office, as in the case of ordinary mail. The postage rate for the first zone—that is, within distances not exceeding fifty miles—will be five cents for the first pound and three cents for each additional pound. The rates increase for each successive one of the eight zones into which the country is divided, the maximum rate being twelve cents a pound, which will carry a parcel across the continent or even to Alaska and the Philippines. For a fee of ten cents a parcel may be insured, and if the parcel is lost in the mails an indemnity to the amount of its value, not to exceed fifty dollars, will be paid to the sender.

A definite and comprehensive water-power policy for streams upon the public domain and navigable streams not on the public domain, is urged by the secretary of the interior, Walter L. Fisher, as the most important subject pending before Congress and the country, in his annual report submitted to President Taft. Other legislation which Secretary Fisher recommends as important to the welfare of the country embodies an enlarged application of the leasing principle as applied to the public domain in general; a comprehensive leasing law for coal, oil, and other mineral lands; and laws providing for the classification of public lands according to their respective characteristics and appropriate uses, and administration in accordance therewith. Secretary Fisher also declares in favor of legislation for the development of the transportation facilities and the coal lands of Alaska, and for the withdrawal from entry of public lands in the West needed to conserve the water supply at the sources of streams.

The government lost its fight before the Supreme Court of the United States to have the anthracite coal carrying railroads and their affiliated coal companies declared to be in a general combination in violation of the Sherman antitrust law. It won a victory in getting the court to strike down the contracts whereby the railroad coal companies "buy sixty-five per cent of the output of "independent" mines. Justice Lurton, in announcing the opinion, said these contracts were plainly in violation of the The court also held that railroads had violated the law by attempting to shut out of the anthracite region a competitive road through their control of the Temple Iron Company.

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