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1002
XIII. COMMUNICATIONS OF SWEDEN.
the size of the paper: to control the payment of this tax a special revenue
stamp was introduced, with which every copy of a newspaper had to be marked.
In 1830 a regulation was issued that either contracted post or inn-post should
be employed instead of the farmer-post for the conveyance of the mails on
several new postal lines established at that time. In the same year, the rate
of inland postage was thoroughly revised, the basis for the new rate being,
not as before, the number of post-offices a letter had to pass, but the distance
between the place of posting and that of destination; by this means a
complete zone-tariff was instituted, with eleven different rates of postage. In 1849
regulations were issued for the conveyance by post also of articles with
declared value. July 1, 1855 is a day of note in the annals of the Swedish Post
Office, for on that day was introduced the uniform inland postage for letters
of a certain weight, without respect to distance. Simultaneously with this was
also introduced the use of postage-stamps and of fixed letter-boxes. At the same
time, the Riksdag gave permission to apply the future possible surplus on the
income of the Post Office to the extension and improvement of the latter. At the
beginning of 1861 were established the so-called postal stations, post-offices with
limited competence and subordinate to a head post-office (postkontor). In 1863,
a complete postal car, the first traveling post-office of the country, was placed
upon the state-railways. In 1866 money orders, and the system of forwarding
articles marked with trade charges (value payable articles) came into use, while
inland book-post came into existence in 1864, after foreign book-post having long
been in operation.
The period (1867/89) during which the Swedish Post was under the
direction of A. W. Roos, was one of great importance for our postal system. Amongst
notable improvements made under his administration the following may be
mentioned: In 1869 the postage for letters to Norway and Denmark was reduced
to the same amount as for inland correspondence; in 1870 all the post-farms
still in existence were freed from the obligation of attending to the
conveyance of the general mails; in 1872 the stamp-duty for newspapers was
exchanged for a postage in accordance with the subscription prices; in the same
year stamped envelopes and post-cards were introduced and the insurance system
was reorganized; in 1872 the first Post Office Hand Book, containing the
principal Regulations, Rates of Postage, etc., was issued; in 1873 the franking
privilege, which had been granted to certain authorities and officials, was
withdrawn; in the last-named year, too, the »letter-carrying for the Crown», a
burden laid upon certain farms to transport official letters, came to an end.
a great number of new postal lines and post-offices being gradually established
to replace this method of letter-carrying; in 1877 a beginning was made to
facilitate, by means of rural postmen, the interchange of correspondence in
country districts; and, in 1882, the delivery fee to postmen was abolished.
— During this period it was, too, that the Universal Postal Union was formed
(1875).
During the last decade we note: the compilation and completion, by means
of special regulations and instructions (from 1892), of the rules in force
respecting the different branches of the postal service, in order to secure stability and
uniformity in its working; the division, from 1893, of the whole country, with
the exception of the towns of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö and their
nearest vicinity, into five postal districts, each placed under a postal inspector
authorized to act as an intermediate authority between the central administration and
the postmasters, as the heads of the post-offices are now called, save those in
the three towns just mentioned, who are called postal directors; and finally, the
publication of a new Post Office Hand Book (1899).
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