viii] POSTS AirD TE EEGRAP1>S 421
1892 India applied the standard Union rates to correspondence rates to
for all parts of the world, whether within or outside the Postal foreign
Union; and in 1898 she joined in the scheme for the adoption
of a uniform rate of postage at the rate of a penny per half
ounce on letters throughout the British Empire.
In 1873 arrangements were made for the carriage of parcels Foreign
to and from England, and for their collection and distribution, Parcel
by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company.
This was soon followed by the introduction of exchanges of
postal parcels with certain other European countries, and with
several British colonies. In I885 the exchange of parcels
with the United Kingdom was transferred to the agency
of the British Post Office, and in I899 India joined the
International Parcel Post Union. Parcels can now be
exchanged by post between India and almost every country
in the world.
Prior to I88o sums not exceeding Rs. I50 could be remitted Inland
by money order from one District treasury to another. A o oner
commission of about I per cent. was charged, and the remitter
had to send the order obtained by him from the remitting
treasury to the payee, who was required to present it for
encashment at the treasury of payment. The cost of trans-
mitting the order was a charge over and above the commission,
and there was, besides, the risk of the order being lost or
stolen in the post unless forwarded under the security of
registration. In 1878-9 the District treasuries issued monthly
(on an average) 20,605 money orders of the aggregate value
of 7.4 lakhs, yielding a commission of Rs. 8,823. From
January I, I88o, this money-order business was taken over by
the Post Office. The commission remained the same, but
a radical change was made in the procedure. The remitter
had only to fill in an application, the Post Office undertaking
to transmit the money to the payee, and to obtain his acknow-
ledgement and deliver it to the remitter. -The immediate
effect of this change of agency, by which 5,ogo post offices
of issue and payment were substituted for 321 treasuries, was
that the business done quadrupled within three months, the
number of money orders issued in the single month of March,
i88o, being 97,284, of the aggregate value of more than 31 lakhs,
and yielding a commission of Rs. 36,238.
Numerous and important improvements have been made in
the system since its transfer to the Post Office. Among them
may be mentioned the addition to the form of application of
a 'coupon,' on which the remitter is at liberty to write a com-
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