Individual Liberty - Evernote

Here the ghost appears, all form and no substance. "John Jones is a better messenger
than John Smith," declares the Winsted Press, "because Jones can run over stony
ground, while Smith cannot." "Indeed!" I answer; "Why, then, did Smith outrun Jones
the other day in going from San Francisco to Wayback?" "Oh! That may be
explained," the Press rejoins, "by the fact that the ground was stony." The Press had
complained against the Anarchistic theory of free competition in postal service that
private enterprise would not reach remote points, while government does reach them.
I proved by facts that private enterprise was more successful than government in
reaching remote points. What sense, then, is there in answering that these points are
distant from the governments headquarters and that it had not developed its service?
The whole point lies in the fact that private enterprise was the first to develop its
service and the most successful in maintaining it at a high degree of efficiency.
"2. Government competition which kept Wells, Fargo from charging monopoly
prices."
If the object of a government postal service is to keep private enterprise from charging
high prices, no more striking illustration of the stupid way in which government
works to achieve its objects could be cited than its imposition of a tax of two (then
three) cents a letter upon private postal companies. It is obvious that this tax was all
that kept Wells, Fargo & Co. from reducing their letter-rate to three or even two cents,
in which case the government probably would have lost the remnant of business
which it still commanded. This is guarding against monopoly prices with a
vengeance! The competitor, whether government or individual, who must tax his rival
in order to live is no competitor at all, but a monopolist himself. It is not government
competition that Anarchists are fighting, but government monopoly. It should be
added, however, that, pending the transformation of governments into voluntary
associations, even government competition is unfair, because an association supported
by compulsory taxation could always, if it chose, carry the mails at less than cost and
tax the deficit out of the people.
"3. Other paying business which brought the company into contact with remote
districts and warranted greater safeguards to conveyance than government then
offered to its mail carriers."
Exactly. What does it prove? Why,that postal service and express service can be most
advantageously run in conjunction, and that private enterprise was the first to find it
out. This is one of the arguments which the Anarchists use.
"4. A difference of two cents was not appreciated in a country where pennies were
unknown."
Here the phantom attains the last degree of attenuation. If Mr. Pinney will call at the
Winsted post-office, his postmaster will tell - what common sense ought to have
taught him - that of all the stamps used not over five per cent. are purchased singly,
the rest being taken two, three, five, ten, a hundred, or a thousand at a time.
Californians are said to be very reckless in the matter of petty expenditures, but I
doubt if any large portion of them would carry their prodigality so far as to pay five
dollars a hundred for stamps when they could get them at three dollars a hundred on
the next corner.