maneuvers, and will know nothing of log-rolling for appropriations. When its labors are concluded the result will be recognizable in rules established, disputed questions settled, methods of procedure improved, distinct advantages gained for the whole civilized world. It will afford an example, as previous congresses of similar nature have already done, of what can be accomplished by the mutual counsel and concerted efforts of a body of men chosen expressly for their recognized fitness to deal with the interests committed to their charge. If it does not teach a lesson as to the improvement which might be effected in legislative bodies could their members also be chosen on grounds of fitness and competency for the work of legislation, it will not be because the lesson is not sufficiently on the surface.
The congress referred to, as our headline shows, is that of the Universal Postal Union. The formation of the Postal Union may be regarded as marking the transition from a period of semibarbarism in postal matters—that is to say, from an international point of view—to a period of civilization. Prior to 1874 each nation followed its own devices so far as postal arrangements were concerned. There was no attempt at uniformity of postage rates or regulations, and all international relations were complicated in the highest degree. The postage charges to no two countries were the same; or, if they were the same, it was by accident. There was no accident, however, about their being high. It had not occurred to anybody as yet that there could be such a thing as cheap international postage. It seemed to be an accepted axiom that, if correspondence was carried on across a frontier, it must be made an expensive affair.
A far-sighted German, however, the late Herr von Stephan, of Berlin, conceived the idea of introducing order into this postal chaos. He did not see why, if uniform rates could obtain through the extensive territories of a single state, uniform rates might not also be established over the civilized globe. He saw no sense in international frontiers in postal matters. A letter, he held, should be free to go whithersoever its sender willed, at the lowest charge compatible with reimbursement of the expense of conveyance. And as, in the main, the correspondence which each country would send to any other country would be about equal to what it would receive therefrom, he saw no necessity for international accounts. The result of the communication of these ideas to a number of the leading postal administrations of the world was the summoning in the year 1873 of the Berne Conference. The result of the conference was the establishment of the Postal Treaty of Berne, to which the leading nations of the world were signatories. That treaty established a uniform international rate of five cents for a half-ounce (fifeen gramme) letter, with a provisional permission to levy a surcharge up to five cents more on correspondence addressed to very distant countries, and subject therefore to specially heavy "transit" rates. International accounts were in the main abolished. There were still, however, complications, arising from the fact that a great many countries were yet outside the Union, and that accounts had therefore to be maintained with these, and certain debits and credits in connection with their correspondence to be passed on to other countries.
As time went on, however, things simplified themselves gradually. One by one the outlying countries fell in; and at the present time there
