A knowledgeable enquiry into the postal tariffs of the kingdom has not yet been made in any depth or with any recognition of the reasons for such a tariff. Conscious of such a lack some catalogue editors have, for some years, outlined for their readers the principal tariffs in use in the country. This initiative, dating from a few years back, provides for a certain interest even though fit does not constitute any detailed information, restricting that information to the base tariffs for letters and a few other items.

At the point we have reached in the study of postal history we can no longer afford to ignore the essential element represented by the postal tariff, an element that cannot be isolated from the study of stamps or postmarks. On my part I wish to make my contribution to a better understanding of the postal rates during the reign of Victor Emmanuel II, which, even today, are still only known in a fragmentary fashion.

It may seem to be an enquiry strictly limited in time - from 1863 to 1878 - but as readers will have become aware the complexity of the postal tariff in even such a limited period is considerable since, despite the apparent simplicity of the internal tariff, there are notable difficulties as regards the external tariff and that for post offices abroad, due largely to the mate of postal conventions. These gave way only slowly to the mixed regime imposed by the UPU Treaty of 1874 in Berne which divided tariffs into those within the Universal Postal Union and those outside the Union which maintained individual state conventions.

THE INTERNAL TARIFF:

In a previous article which appeared in this magazine ("Fil-Italia" Vol. IX, p.164) I outlined the first postal tariff of the kingdom established by the laws of 5th May, 1862 and which remained in force from 1st January, 1863 to 31st December, 1864. To complete this information let us take story of the period inasmuch as fit concerns the postal tariff.

The laws of May 1862 imported one innovation from beyond the Alps. For the first time letters sent unfranked did not pay the same rate as franked letters but double. It was of course in the interests of the postal administration that carriage should be prepaid whether it was to avoid the long and costly registration of items or to eliminate the financial burden of refused letters.

The letter rate established a charge of 15c. up to a weight limit of 10 grammes; registration cost 30c. In addition to the letter rate; insurance 10c. more than the combined postage and registration fees. For newspapers and printed paper the taxes are outlined in TABLE 'A'. These rates had a long life, lasting from 1863 to 31st December, 1873 with the exception of the base letter rate which rose to 20c. on 1st January, 1865. Another small modification introduced was the office registration fee which rose to 60c. or twice the normal fee.

As of 1st January, 1874 there were important modifications to the tariff; the progressive steps of the letter rate were raised to 15 grammes, while the insurance fee was doubled to 20c. As regards samples and manuscripts there was a substantial reduction which changed the 10c. local and 40c. internal rate to 2c. irrespective of destination while preserving the same weight limit of 40 grammes.

Another notable modification was the introduction of single and replypaid postal stationery cards. This introduced into the postal regulations for the first time a discriminatory rate for short written messages; until then unknown.

To complete our picture of the internal tariff we must add the important regulations arising from the Laws of 14th June, 1874 which have been the subject of a separate article which appeared in our last issue ("Fil-Italia", Vol. X, p.18). In brief the laws in question stated -

a) A special tax for official correspondence by which the postal franchise was abolished according to the limits outlined in Table B.

b) A 50% reduction in tariff for letters sent by sindaci to other sindaci, prefects and sub-prefects, state officials and tribunals, finance officers and military districts.

With the successive decree of 26th March, 1875, operative from 1st April, 1875 this was modified in view of its cost to the economy, and the experiment was suspended as from 31st December, 1876 as far as state correspondence was concerned although the 50% reduction in rate for sindaci remained unaltered.

THE POSTAL TARIFF FOR POST OFFICES ABROAD:

As from lst January, 1869 a decree established a tariff for letters sent to Tunis, Tripoli and Alexandria. Letters up to a weight of 10 grammes paid 40c. if franked and 60c. if unfranked. For Tripoli it was only possible to send franked letters. Manuscripts and samples up to a weight of 50 grammes were subject to a tax of 20c., while printed paper paid 5c. for each 40 grammes. Registration was fixed at 40c. above the normal franking.

As of 15th July, 1870 the tariff was modified, i.e.

- the weight of letters was raised to 15gr.

- the tariff for manuscripts and samples was reduced to 5c. per 40 grammes.

A new series of tariff changes began in July, 1875. The tax for franked letters was left unchanged but that for unfranked letters was raised to 80c.; the rate for manuscripts and samples together with that for printed paper was unified in a single system of weights and tariffs whereby each 50gr. paid 10c.; the registration surcharge was reduced to 30c. The postal stationery cards introduced into Italy on 1st January, 1874 were also admitted for correspondence with post offices overseas with a tariff of 15c. for the single card and 20c. for the reply paid card.

Finally there was a further modification as from 1st January, 1876; the offices at that time being Tunis, Tripoli and Buenos Aires. These were modifications as a consequence of the Berne agreements for the UPU in 1874 which established weight and tariff limits for member states. As a result the tariff for a 15gr. letter became 30c. if franked and 60c. if unfranked; manuscripts, samples and printed paper paid 5c. per 50 gr.; the registration fee was 30c., while single postcards paid 15c. and reply-paid cards 20c.

THE EXTERNAL POSTAL TARIFF:

The complexity of external postal tariffs derives from the fact that for the period 1861-75 the factors regulating international postal arrangements were the postal conventions agreed between single states which led to a varied number of regulations being valid which had originated in numerous dispositions of the Sardinian period. While we have ample primary evidence for conventions agreed in the Italian period we rely for information on Sardinia on the facts published by G. Guderzo in "Vie e Mezzi Di Comunicazione in Piemonte 1831-61" - the information is summarised in Tables 'D' & 'E'.

We must reiterate that in the case of no convention existing between two states the letters coming from one state and addressed to the other had to pay the rate to the frontier, after which the addressee had to pay carriage for the rest of the way. This system was used for correspondence addressed to the Papal States where, in the absence of postal recognition, letters were franked for that part of their journey within the interior but with the recipient being taxed for the remainder.

The postal tariffs agreed in the Sardinian period and dealt with here are those affecting France, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Austria and Britain. The basic unit of weight was 72 grammes with the exception of Austria where each step was of 15 grammes. Naturally the tariff for each country varied but all conventions still insisted on the principle of an equal tax whether mail was franked or not; with the exception of Great Britain where unfranked letters were penalised by paying a tax double the normal rate. This last convention bears the date 19th December, 1857 and is symptomatic of the attention paid by the British administration to the problem of paying for carriage which tended to link payment with the introduction of the postage stamp as a visible means of establishing that the service had been paid for.

The convention with Austria is different in that the rates vary according to distance. Sardinia was divided into two zones, the first including a strip of 75km deep from the border, the second made up of the rest of the country. Austria for its part was divided into three zones; a stretch along the frontier to a depth of ten German leagues; a second zone which went up to 20 leagues; and a third including the rest of the country. For the actual tariffs the reader is referred to Table 'D'.

Following the unification of Italy the following conventions were stipulated

1862 Greece and Switzerland

1863 Belgium and Portugal

1865 Brazil

1867 Spain and Austria

1868 Netherlands and Switzerland

1869 German Confederate States and France

The conventions were agreed to after the weight limit had been raised to 10 grammes, except for letters sent to Portugal or Brazil who retained the old parameters of 7 1/2 gr. The principle of a penalty payable on unfranked letters introduced in the postal convention with Britain was also applied to the conventions with Switzerland, Brazil, Spain, Austria, Netherlands, Germany and France. The practice by which printed paper was always franked pre-paid continued to apply while the obligatory pre-payment for samples was sanctioned as from the convention with Spain in 1867. Insurance on letters sent abroad came in for the first time with the postal convention with Austria of 28th July, 1867 and then extended to Switzerland in the following year.

An examination of the conventions shows that the normal letter rate for neighbouring countries was fixed at 40c. except for Switzerland which attracted a rate of 30c. The cost of a letter that had to cross another country to reach its destination was 50c., while 60c., 80c. L1 and L1.20 were the tariffs for carriage by sea or through a third intermediary country. Registration fees were fixed pro rata and ranged from 30c. for Switzerland, Austria and Germany to L2 for Greece, the country that attracted the highest tariff, even higher than that for Portugal.

Out of this international morass of conventions emerged an agreement between the more advanced postal countries - Germany, Austro-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, United States, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Rumania, Russia, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. This agreement led to the creation in Berne on 9th October, 1874 of the General Postal Union and the signing of a treaty by which all the signatory states undertook to unify their tariffs and to grant reciprocal free exchange of mail. It was an important leap forward in international postal relations and a notable impulse towards the development of this means of communication.

The innovations introduced by the Berne treaty and later incorporated into Italian legislation were:

a. A rate of 25c. for mail with the signatory states (with certain exceptions);

b. The rate for unfranked letters was fixed at 50c.;

c. The weight steps for letters was raised to 15gr. and that for printed paper, etc., to 50gr.;

d. Franking became obligatory for newspapers, samples and registered mail;

e. The registration fee is equal to that for unregistered despatches and must not exceed that established for the internal service of the originating country;

f. For carriage by sea in excess of 300 miles a tax of not more than 122c. could be required.

g. Relations with countries not forming part of the Union would continue to be regulated according to the postal conventions already concluded or as specifically stipulated by the interested parties.

h. The creation of a central clearing office.

i. A meeting of the signatory states at least every three years.

j. The abrogation of postal agreements between any two signatory states.

With these important premises the General Postal Union gave birth at Paris in 1878 to the Universal Postal Union. Italy for her part had ratified her membership of the Union on 25th May, 1875. All the same, for economic motives, an opportunity was taken to modify within certain limits, the indicated tariff; the amount of which can be seen in Table 'F', integrated into the tariffs stipulated by the Treaty. In 1877 and 1878 several decrees were issued concerning correspondence addressed to countries other than UPU members, unilateral action to cut short the long and elaborate negotiations needed for the stipulation of a convention.

It is at this point with the foundation of the UPU and the replacement of the conventions with the Treaty, that we end the reign of Victor Emmanuel II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Giulio Guderzo

Vie e mezzi di comunicazione in Piemonte dal 1831 al 1861: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento Italiano, Turin, 1961.

Giuseppe Marchese

Le prime tariffe postali del Regno d'Italia, Il Nuovo Corriere Filatelico, No. 40, Aprile 1982, pp 97-104: In translation in "Fil-Italia" September, 1983, Vol. IX, p.164)

"        "        La franchigia postale negli anni di Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II: Il NCF, No. 41, June 1982: in translation in "Fil-Italia", December, 1983, Vol. X, p. 18.

The Berne Treaty of 1874.

Vedi (Fig. 1), (Fig. 2), (Fig. 3), (Fig. 4), (Fig. 5), (Fig. 6), (Fig. 7).