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revenue limitation was even stricter than that which had originally been applied to stage-coach routes.^1 In any case it involved difficulties of calculating and checking the revenues, which slowed down the handling of the mail,^2 so that the Act of 1926^3 to provide that the rates of pay should be on a poundage basis, and a maximum was fixed which, it was calculated, would approximate four-fifths of the postage revenue.^4

With this change in the law the service began to grow. And with Lindbergh's dramatic flight in 1927, and his succeeding tour of the country, all of commercial aviation boomed.^5 The need for making a transition from a simple contract system for air mail transportation to some other system which would give a sounder basis for investment was apparent. Accordingly in 1928 the law was again amended to provide that the Postmaster General might, by negotiation, substitute for any contract a route certificate under which a right to carry the mail would be conferred for a period of not to exceed ten years beyond the award of the original contract, at a rate to be determined by negotiation, but not to exceed the original contract rate.^6 Significantly there appears in this amendment the first explicit indication in the law of the promotional function of the Service. The Postmaster General was given the power to provide by rule, regulation, and order "for meeting the needs of the Postal Service and adjusting air mail operations to the advances in the art of flying."

This change in the law would, it was felt, offer a sound basis for investment, warrant the procurement of better equipment and aid in the progressive development of the Service.^7

The demands for new air mail service were by now far exceeding the amounts of the annual appropriations, and in 1929 an Interdepartmental Committee was formed, composed of representatives of the Post Office Department and of the Department of Commerce, to consider the feasibility of proposed routes, to give the cities involved an opportunity to be heard, to consider the needs of the service, etc.^8

Thus, with the statutory provision for route certificates, and with an administrative machinery for considering the issues of need and feasibility and to hear interested parties,

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^1 Supra, p. 8.
^2 A Brief History of the Contract Air Mail Service, op. cit., p. 1.
^3 Public No. 331, 69th Cong.
^4 Hearings before the House Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads on H.R. 3, H.R. 8578 and other air mail bills, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 54.
^5 A Brief History of the Contract Air Mail Service, op. cit., pp. 1-2.
^6 Public No. 410, 70th Cong.
^7 A Brief History of the Contract Air Mail Service, op. cit., p. 2.
^8 Id.