7 JANUARY 1922, Page 11

The Postmaster-General has at last become aware that busi- ness

men are finding it cheaper to have circulars printed and posted abroad for distribution in this country than to have them printed and posted here. - He argues in an official statement issued on Monday that the Continental printers get the work because the exchange favours them, and that British postal rates have little to do with the matter. Yet the fact that the printed paper rate for Great Britain is a penny for two ounces, while for abroad it is only a halfpenny for two ounces, must have some effect on advertisers. It is obviously absurd that it should cost twice as much-to send a printed paper-by post to the next street as it does to send the same paper- to India or Japan. Mr. Kellaway's whole policy is wrong. Like his predecessors before the days of Sir Rowland Hill, he firmly believes that the Post Office will increase its revenue by charging high rates. But the success of the penny postage between 1840 and 1914 proved that the old theory was• erroneous.