Univ. Postal Union
ALTERNATIVE NAME: UPU.
DATE/PLACE OF INAUGURATION: 15th September 1874, in Berne, Switzerland.
FIELD: International Postal Traffic.
LANGUAGE: Multi-lingual.
MAJOR WORK: Establishment of international mail traffic.
LIFE AND TIMES: The Universal Postal Union was set up in 1874, at a time when rules for international postal traffic had become unmanageably complex. The history of international post began after a treaty was signed between France and Spain in 1660, which restricted each country to delivering mail only in their own territory.
Gradually all other European countries fell in line and refused to admit foreign mail carriers. The result was that many treaties, defining terms for foreign mail delivery, were signed between different countries. By 1873, Germany was signatory to seventeen bilateral postal agreements, France held sixteen, Belgium fifteen and England twelve.
Since the terms of each individual contract could vary over a wide range of details, such as the rates, weights, contents and even size of letters that could be carried, the delivery of international mail had become very complicated. It was quite common for mail to a given destination to be charged at a variety of rates, depending on the route used.
Rowland Hill*’s postal reforms in England during the early 1840’s stimulated the first moves to reform the international postal system. By 1851, a private organisation, the International Postage Association, which had been set up in London, canvassed officials all over the world for international postal reform.
Their efforts resulted in a recommendation by the International Statistical Congress of 1853, that postal reforms carried out in various countries should be adopted on an international basis. The Austro-German Postal Union, formed between Prussia and Austria in 1850, guaranteed efficient distribution across both territories.
The union lasted twelve years, until it was dissolved thanks to political differences, but it proved that international cooperation was possible. In the 1860s, formal moves to achieve this began, when the U S Postmaster-General, Montgomery Blair, set up an international conference to discuss common postal problems.
Sixteen countries were represented at a Congress in Paris on 11th May 1863. Among the nations attending were Austria, Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, the Hanseatic Cities on the Baltic, Italy, the Netherlands, the Sandwich Islands, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The subjects on the agenda were uniformity of weights and rates and the simplification of administration.
The way was now clear for a more binding arrangement for international mail. The Director of Posts for the North German Confederation, Heinrich von Stephan, recommended that a conference should take place, with a view to drawing up a postal treaty among nations. The German postal administration agreed to this in 1869, but it was a few years before international agreement was reached.
The conference finally took place in Berne, Switzerland, starting on 15th September 1874. After three weeks, a binding treaty was drafted and signed by twenty-one different territories. The treaty brought them together as a single unit for the exchange of mail, operating with standardised and simplified postal rates and procedures. The new organisation was called the Universal Postal Union.
Between 1874 and World War I, the UPU expanded the range of services available on the international mailing system. Some new services, like ‘special delivery’, dealt with exchange of mail and were added to the basic postal convention. Others were non-mail services, provided for in special optional agreements that had the same standing as the postal convention.
By 1906, there were six of these additions. The first appeared in 1878 and concerned insured letters and boxes. An agreement over Postal Money Orders (which gave impetus to American Express*) was also signed in the same year, by sixteen countries. Other arrangements, made in 1885, involved parcel post, a collection of bills agreement and a postal identity card agreement.
Special rates for postcards and reply-paid cards were set in 1885 and an agreement on postal rates for printed matter, covering newspapers and periodicals, was made in 1891. The international postage reply coupon was introduced in 1906.
Other amendments in these early years were the inclusion of Braille materials within the printed matter category in 1885 and in 1899, provision was made for free delivery of mail to prisoners of war.
Between the world wars, two more important services were introduced, in the shape of postal travellers’ cheques and phonopost. The Hague Airmail Conference took place between 1st and 10th September 1927. Delegates came from thirty-eight postal administrations as well as representatives from fourteen air transport companies, the International Air Transport Association and the Air Transport Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce.
A lot of progress was made in agreements on cheap and uniform postal rates, fair compensation for air navigation companies, regular transhipment of airmail and a simplified system of international accounting.
At the Brussels European Airmail Conference held in June 1938, it was decided that all first class mail within Europe would be delivered by air with no surcharge. The reductions that this allowed in the cost of administration meant that the airline companies could charge less. The operation was handled by the International Air Traffic Association, IATA.
In 1939, war then broke out, totally disrupting the arrangements of the UPU and international mailing cooperation immediately broke down. After the war ended in 1945, the activities of the UPU quickly got back to normal. The twelfth congress took place in Paris in May 1947 and two hundred and seventy-one delegates attended.
Around the same time, the United Nations started to organize themselves and set up an Executive and Liaison Committee to deal with the modernisation of the postal systems of different countries, working closely with UPU to establish international cooperation.
By now, all airmail services were operating with little cost difference, so the decision was made to allow individual countries to decide their own maximum charges, provided that it was evident that the charges were fairly based on actual transportation costs.
ASSESSMENT: The UPU has been very effective in its area of primary concern, as well as its contributions to international cooperative effort in general.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Related to work of Candolle*
ONELINER: UPU, first international postal regulator
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
George A. Codding, Jr., The Universal Postal Union: Coordinator of the International Mails, New York University Press, 1964.