No. 2.
Mr. Osborn
to Mr. Evarts.
Buenos Ayres, September 18, 1877. (Received November 3.)
Sir: The report sent to Congress by the postmaster-general, Mr, Olivera, is now published, in a volume of some four hundred pages, and comprises the returns of the telegraph department, which is now under the postmaster-general.
The report shows the miles run by the mail service were: Mail cars, 3,174,274 miles; couriers, 616,274 miles; and steamers, 291,450 miles, in all, more than 4,000,000 of miles; and that the postmaster-general has effected a saving of more than $222,000 from the sum voted in his budget, about one-half the limit fixed by Congress.
The postmaster-general states the business of the post-office at seven and a half millions of letters and papers for the whole republic, and, estimating the population at about 2,000,000 souls, he gives two letters to each inhabitant, making the proportion six letters per head in Buenos Ayres and from one to four in the other provinces.
He states that he anticipates an increase of traffic as soon as the Argentine Confederation is admitted into the Berne postal convention, and urges the necessity of making the post-office self-supporting by increasing the tax on newspapers, as the tax now scarcely pays twenty per cent, of the cost of carriage and distribution.
The report shows that the returns of the telegraph department for the past two or three years have been almost stationary, a result caused by the crisis partly, and partly by the decrease of population.
Besides the national government telegraph lines, there are sixteen other lines—in all, 4,530 miles, of which 2,675 miles belong to the general government—and the report claims that there is a mile of telegraph in the Argentine Republic for every 320 inhabitants, and, comparing this with other countries, claims that the Argentine Republic is, relatively, the foremost country in point of telegraphs.
I am, &c.,