Today, the 9th of October, is the most important day for the entire postal community in the world for it was on such a day, in 1874, that the greatest event in the annals of the postal history, the formation of the Universal Postal Union took place. This union was so advantageous and beneficial to the world post that this day was declared as the World Post Day.

All the postal administrations in the world celebrate this day by organizing commemorative essay competitions, public lectures especially in schools, stamp exhibitions, seminars and displaying posters, signifying the importance of the post.

The Universal Postal Union, popularly known as the U.P.U. was founded on the 9th of October, 1874 by the plenipotentiaries of 22 signatory states of the Berne Treaty, the first inter governmental treaty, regulating international postal service.

It is true to say that there is only one postal service for the whole world. All the postal administrations are interconnected. But the world postal communications were originally governed by bilateral agreements which answered the particular needs of each country. This system, involving as it did a great variety of methods of mail circulations and rates calculated in different currencies and according to different units of weight and different scales, made it complicated to operate the service and hampered its development. The Industrial Revolution brought about a change in the postal system through inventions like, ship, aeroplane, electricity, telephone and automobile.

The postal service came within the reach of the ordinary man with the introduction on the 10th of January, 1840, of lower uniform rate for postal articles and the first stamp in the world known as Penny Black for its colour and denomination, on the 6th of May, 1840, by Rowland Hill (later Sir) . These developments contributed heavily for the quick growth of volume of ordinary mail in an unexpected manner thereby causing appearance of problems in the areas of delivery and transmission of foreign letter mail. Different currencies and rates widened the problem. It is reported that on the very first day of the introduction of lower rate, 10th of January 1840, 112,000 postal articles were posted at London Post Office alone.

This prompted Heinrich von Stephan of German Postal Administration to draw up a plan for a union of all the postal administrations in the world in order to ease the growing problems. He also proposed, the plan be submitted to a plenipotentiary conference. As a result of this attempt, of von Stephan and of Hontgomery Blair, the postmaster general of the Lincoln administration, at the request of the Swiss Government, 22 countries signed the Treaty of Berne on the 9th of October, 1874 establishing the Universal Postal Union.

This union binds all the postal administrations of the world together, it governs and moniters international post, settles, disputes between administrations, advises and warns postal authorities of current issues. Almost all the countries in the world are members of the Universal Postal Union. The function of the union is to regulate the international postal services. Provisions for the letter and parcel post are embodied in the obligatory Universal Postal Convention and its detailed regulations.

As a mark of respect for the role played by the union for the upliftment of the international postal services, a resolution was adopted at Tokyo Congress held in 1969, recommending that the 9th of October be declared U.P.U. Day. But the Hamberg Congress held in Germany in 1984 observed that the title U.P.U Day might not have desired impact on the authorities and the public to whom the information campaign is directed and the title for this day containing the word POST would be more likely to increase awareness. So the congress decided to change the title U.P.U Day to the World Post Day.
Mr. R. A. Jayaratna,
Chief Instructor,
Sri Lanka Postal Training Institute,
Kandy.