Chapter X: Section 20: of the Act was quite new and prohibits the sending by

post of indecent or obscene articles, and the tendency of the age is shown by the first mention in this clause of the word "sedition" in connection with postal articles. "Articles having thereon or on the cover thereof any words, marks or designs of an indecent, obscene, seditious, defamatory or grossly offensive character" were prohibited from being sent by post. The wording of this section is interesting owing to the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of the word "thereon"; it would almost seem that the framers of the Act wished to wrap this clause in ambiguity. In Section 22 the important principle of the English Law is laid down that the Post Office is not bound to send parcels and packets along with the letter mail, but may detain them as long as is necessary. By Section 25 special power is given to search for goods notified under the Sea Customs Act, and in Section 26, the Public Emergency section, "The Governor-General in Council, or a Local Government, or any officer specially authorized in this behalf by the Governor-General in Council, may, by an order in writing, direct that any postal article or class or description of postal articles in course of transmission by post shall be intercepted or detained." Had the framers of this Act any idea of the extent to which this power would have to be used they might have expressed themselves in greater detail.[6] Sections 30 to 36 and 43 to 48 of the Act deal with the power of the Governor-General in Council to make rules for the insurance of postal articles and the transmission of value-payable articles and money orders by post.

To judge from the large number of additional penalty clauses introduced into this Act, postal crime seems to have grown side by side with postal development. Every possible misdemeanour and fraud is visited with appropriate punishment; not even the mail runner who fails in his duty to appear at the time he is required can escape, while the postman who makes a false entry in his book to show that he has been visiting a certain village, when all the time he has been loitering in a neighbouring bazaar, renders himself liable to six months' imprisonment or a fine of one hundred rupees. Sections 62 and 63 are taken from the English Post Office Protection Act, 1884, and impose penalties for injuring the contents of any letter-box or for disfiguring any post office or letter-box. To prevent hasty and ill-considered prosecutions, it was laid down in Section 72 that no Court should take cognizance of any offence under the Act, except with the previous sanction or on the complaint of the Director-General of the Post Office or of a Postmaster-General.

In 1898 postage rates on letters were reduced to the following scale:--

Not exceeding ½ tola ½ anna.
" " 1½ tolas 1 "
" " 3 " 2 annas.
For every additional 1½ tolas or fraction
thereof 1 anna.

The postage on newspapers was fixed at:

Not exceeding 4 tolas ¼ anna.
" " 20 " ½ "
For every additional 20 tolas or part
thereof ½ "

In 1905 a still further reduction in letter postage was made, namely:

Not exceeding ¾ tola ½ anna.
" " 1½ tolas 1 "
" " 3 " 2 annas.
For every additional 1½ tolas or fraction
thereof 1 anna.

In 1907, after a long discussion, it was decided to make the Indian anna rate approximate to the English penny rate. The British Post Office had decided to carry 4 ounces for one penny, and as an ounce is roughly 2½ tolas the weight that could be sent for an anna was increased from 1½ to 10 tolas. The ¾ tolas for ½ anna was very properly considered absurd, and the weight was raised to 1 tola. The rates as revised in 1907 were:

Not exceeding 1 tola ½ anna.
" " 10 tolas 1 "
For every additional 10 tolas or fraction
thereof 1 anna.

This was a sweeping measure which mainly benefited that portion of the community which could best afford to pay high rates of postage, and the argument for making the anna rate correspond to the penny rate in England left out of account the very important fact that in England the minimum rate for letters was a penny, whereas in India it is half that amount. It is difficult to estimate what the loss to the Post Office must have been, but when one considers that a letter of 10 tolas, which under the previous rates would have had to bear 7 annas postage, could be sent for 1 anna it will be understood that the loss was considerable. The measure was also one that affected the Post Office in two ways, since less revenue was received in postage stamps and the increased number of bulky letters necessitated a larger carrying staff. Despite the admitted cheapness of postage in India, some short-sighted agitators cry out for a ¼ anna letter rate; but the Post Office can well afford to disregard their murmurings and may congratulate itself on having made its services accessible to even the very poorest member of the community.

By Act III of 1912 the Indian Post Office Act of 1898 was further amended, and special rules were made to protect postmasters who had to search or detain articles passing through the post. The public who use the value-payable system have been protected from fraudulent traders by a section which provides for the retention and repayment to the addressee, in cases of fraud, of money recovered on the delivery of any value-payable postal article; at the same time the Post Office is authorized to levy a fee before making any inquiry into complaints of this kind.

Since the Great War broke out in 1914 it has been found necessary to increase inland postage rates for both letters and parcels. In 1918 the letter rates were fixed as follows:--

For letters: Not exceeding 1 tola ½ anna.
Exceeding 1 tola, but not exceeding 2½
tolas 1 "
For every additional 2½ tolas or part
thereof 1 "
For parcels: Not exceeding 20 tolas 2 annas.
Exceeding 20 tolas, but not exceeding
40 tolas 4 "
For every additional 40 tolas or part
thereof 4 "

Many complaints were received that the parcel rates were excessive and injuring the fruit trade and other local industries, so that with effect from the 1st June, 1919, the rates were reduced to 3 annas for every 40 tolas up to 440 tolas, the minimum of 2 annas for 20 tolas remaining the same.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] The first instance of an article being prohibited from passing through the post is that of the _Bengal Gazette_ (editor, J. A. Hicky), quoted by Dr. Busteed in his _Echoes of Old Calcutta_:

"_Order._ Fort William, November 14th, 1780. Public notice is hereby given that as a weekly newspaper called the _Bengal Gazette_ or _Calcutta General Advertiser_, printed by J. A. Hicky, has lately been found to contain several unbroken paragraphs tending to vilify private characters and to disturb the peace of the Settlement, it is no longer permitted to be circulated through the channel of the General Post Office."