EDITORIAL

...Commonweal, like so many other publications whose fates are directly linked to economical second-class postal rates, has an axe to grind, of course, in deploring the constantly escalating mail rates and the further limitations of service, Yet there are other stakes involved besides those of a journal's self-interest, and it is these which reinforce the conclusion that a monumental mistake was made with the act of 1970 establishing the United States Postal Service as a semi-independent corporation aimed at becoming self-sustaining...

...Recently, the House of Representatives voted tentatively to return to Congress fiscal control over the U.S...

...We would much prefer to see the Postal Service returned to direct Congressional control...

...Whether the amendment will make it all the way into law is a matter of conjecture...

...New postal rate increases will go into effect on December 28, and a 30 percent increase in first-class mail will be slapped on people, along with comparable increases for other forms of mail...

...Thus the Postal Service moves further down the road of private-market enterprise, measuring everything by profitability, real or prospective, and further away from traditional mail-service ideals of quickening communications and contacts between all for whom a postal service should exist: people, institutions and country...

...the distress felt by millions over the higher rates and lower efficiency of the Postal Service is obviously not shared strongly by some with franking privileges and whose mail gets priority handling...

...the amendment, for instance, does not affect the management of the Postal Service...

...Our problem with the amendment is that it does not go nearly far enough...

...It is business-and one, regrettably, that imposes its heaviest burdens on those who can least afford the profitability mentality...

...Deferred-but perhaps only temporarily-is a Postal Service scheme to close 12,000 rural post offices in the interests of economy and alleged efficiency...

...Postal Service, by adopting an amendment that would force the Postal Service to return to Congress each year for authorization and appropriation of its operating funds...

...This won't eliminate problems, but it would get the postal system back from those ignorant of national traditions and social needs...

...When the mailing of a letter becomes a matter of serious expense for any part of the population, as distinct from an indifferent expenditure, then the Postal Service is not service in the social sense that it should be...