The General Post Office undertakes several duties for the State that are not strictly proper to the Department, but which fall to its share because of the splendid machinery it possesses for getting into touch with the people. And when big reforms come along, such as Old Age Pensions or National Insurance, although the money is to come out of imperial funds, and is not brought into the Post Office balance-sheet at all, it seems the most natural thing for the Treasury to use as paymaster or receiving agent the Department which has an office in every village.

As regards Old Age Pensions I cannot do better than quote the Postmaster-General's own words in his report for 1909, the year following the adoption of the scheme.

“The Old Age Pension Act, 1908, provided for the payment of the pensions weekly, and your lordships having directed that the money should be paid through the Post Office, a committee composed of representatives of the Treasury, the Inland Revenue, the Local Government Board, and the Post Office drew up a scheme providing for payment by means of orders of a special pattern but resembling a postal order in general appearance.

“It gives me great satisfaction to report that the arrangements, which were necessarily planned at short notice, were carried out with complete success—a result due, to a considerable extent, to the hearty and sympathetic co-operation of the postmasters and their staffs throughout the United Kingdom.

“The first payments took place on New Year's Day 1909, and during the three months ending the 31st March, 7,925,150 Old Age Pension orders were cashed, representing a total sum of £1,904,722.

“In addition to paying the pensions after they had been granted, the Post Office furnished (and continues to furnish) information and assistance to any person desiring to make an application for an Old Age Pension.”

And again, in his report for 1910, the Postmaster-General referred to the matter:—

“The total number of Old Age Pensions paid during the year was 35,167,983, representing an amount of £8,465,231.”

It will be seen from the size of these figures that the Post Office has taken upon itself a huge amount of extra business. The old people of the country have an additional reason for looking upon the Department as in a peculiar sense the friend of the poor. The weekly visit of the pensioners enables them to become known to the officials, and the pensioners in their turn grow attached to the building in which they experience weekly the joy of possession. There are few pleasanter human sights in the country to-day than to watch the faces of the pensioners as they leave the post office. Moreover, the meeting of the pensioners, all on the same errand, is having curious results. The Postmaster-General, in his wildest dreams of the possibilities of the Post Office, never perhaps saw it pictured as a matrimonial bureau in which Darby and Joan, going thither to receive their Old Age Pensions, would cast sheep's eyes at each other, and ultimately surround the dole of the State with a halo of romance. In a village near Dudley, a few months after the introduction of Old Age Pensions, two old people were united in wedlock. The bridegroom had seventy-five years to his credit and the bride admitted to seventy-four summers. They had frequently met at the post office, grew to be friendly towards each other, and discovered perhaps a touch of romantic love in their hearts. Anyhow they decided to pool their pensions.

There have been many such instances. It is evident that many of the lady pensioners are now regarded, for the first time perhaps in their lives, as “catches,” and I am afraid several have sacrificed the certain pension for the possible romance.

One of the most amusing incidents of the kind was brought to light over the payment of a Savings Bank warrant. The sub-postmaster was asked to satisfy himself as to the depositor's identity “in view of the shaky nature of her signature.” The sub-postmaster replied: “I have paid the warrant. Depositor an old age pensioner, aged seventy-seven, well known at this office. The shakiness of signature was pointed out to her, and she explained that she was very excited that morning, having just put up the banns. Marriage at the Old Church. Ceremony will be on May 15th.”

Of course there are abundant humours and tragedies revealed in the inquiries made at the post office by would-be pensioners. What desperate efforts will they not resort to for the purpose of proving their age qualification! An applicant at Monaghan, when asked for some evidence of age, replied, “I remember eating a fish which was blown out of Drumloo Lake the night of the big wind, 6th Jan. 1839.”

And some persons seem to think that by the payment of the pension the Post Office is under an obligation to see that it is spent properly. A postmistress received this letter from the relative of a pensioner: “To the Postmaster. Dear Madam, you are requested by order to chastise J—— M—— of B—— for drinking his pension on Saturday, an also on a few occasions this month has been found drunk, an if you don't write to him and give him a sharp advice I shall proceed against you without further notice.”

In consequence of the removal of the pauper disqualification on the 1st January 1911 the number of pensioners was greatly increased. A few can scarcely realise that they have not to go through some ceremony before they can be entitled. The lady pensioner perhaps feels what many of her sisters do when being married at a registry office: they miss the ceremony and the blessing of the Church. At one office in London an old lady inquired earnestly if she had to be christened. “Because,” she said, “I've never been, and if I must I'd like to go to the Rev. —— for choice.”

And she looked woefully disappointed when she was informed that even in her unregenerate state she was qualified for a pension.

The General Post Office through its offices also supplies local taxation licences. If you seek to be the possessor of a dog, a gun, a male servant, a carriage, a motor bicycle, or a motor car, you will obtain the licence from the post office. There seems, indeed, no limit to the possibilities of the local office as an agent for the distribution of the good things which we expect in these days from reforming Governments.

A very interesting but little-known branch of Post Office work is that connected with the army and navy. In time of peace the army at home and abroad is served by the Post Office in the same way as the ordinary public. Correspondence posted in this country for the regiments stationed abroad is sent to and delivered through the agency of the civilian post offices of the colonies and dependencies. During great campaigns, however, it becomes necessary to organise special services to meet the needs of the larger bodies of troops engaged. The first occasion in modern times in which certain postal servants donned fighting kit and subjected themselves to military discipline in order to conduct the postal service in the field was in 1882, upon the outbreak of the Egyptian War. The men-sorters and telegraphists were enrolled from the 24th Middlesex Volunteers, a regiment composed entirely of Post Office servants, and by royal warrant they were constituted the Post Office Corps. The corps consisted of two officers and one hundred men specially transferred from the regiment to the Army Reserve for service abroad, and of these a detachment forty-four strong served with the expeditionary force in Egypt and conducted the entire postal service of the campaign.

The second reserve corps, consisting of telegraphists, and organised on similar lines to the Post Office Corps, was created within the regiment in 1884, under the name of the Royal Engineer Telegraph Reserve, to supplement the staff of the regular Royal Engineer telegraphists during the war. A detachment from this corps and one from the Post Office Corps served in the Sudan campaign of 1884-85.

In the South African War of 1899-1902 the Post Office Corps consisted of 648 men, and 453 men served in the Royal Engineer Reserve. The serious nature of their service is shown by the fact that the losses included several killed in action and about fifty who died of disease.

The duties of the Army Post Office are, to put it briefly, to receive, sort, and distribute correspondence, and to sell stamps, stationery, and postal orders, and generally to perform the main functions of a post office as we know it at home.

The Army Post Office Corps, which is mobilised in time of war, is a volunteer organisation—that is to say, the men composing it are postal servants who volunteer for the particular service. The work of the Telegraph Battalion during the South African War was especially severe, and no less than 386 men were drawn from the Post Office for telegraph purposes alone.

In addition to acting as telegraphists with the army, the men were also required to mend the wires, which were constantly being cut by the enemy, and they were also expected to keep the wires in working order. Seventy-six skilled linesmen were sent out by the Post Office to look after this branch of the work.

Some idea of the postal work conducted by the Post Office Corps during the war may be gathered from the fact that in one week the number of letters sent from London for the seat of war was 313,416, and the mail from the Army Post Office, which reached London about the same time, contained 108,150 letters and registered articles. The parcels sent to the troops reached very high figures, amounting in one week to 19,019.

“The undelivered postal packet” of the Army Post Office is of course a large item in the day's work. It is pitiful to look at the contents of the bags returned. The envelopes are torn and dirty, some of the letters have lost their covering, thus making the delivery hopeless, while others have written across them, “Killed in Action,” “Missing,” or “Gone Home.”

Few people have any idea of the enormous area of South Africa which was covered by our military operations. By the time mails despatched from Capetown reached their destination the addressees had frequently changed their station, and the letters had to undergo a long course of re-direction.

Mr. H. C. Shelley, the war correspondent of the Westminster Gazette, bore eloquent testimony to the work of the Post Office during the war. “Both at Capetown and in the field I had many opportunities of watching the Army Post Office Corps at work. Officers and men alike were always alert in the discharge of their duties, and their courtesy was unfailing. No trouble was ever too great for them to take: their sole concern was that those longed-for letters from home might reach the expectant owners as quickly as possible. At Modder River the post office was a miserable room in which you could not have swung your arm, much less your arm and a cat, but in that wretched apartment the heroes of the Postal Corps kept cheerfully to their work with unflagging zeal.”

As regards the navy, each ship of his Majesty's fleet has a post office to itself in charge of some duly appointed officer. Stamps and postal orders are on sale, and a special bag is provided on board for the posting of correspondence.

When the ships are in home waters the rates of postage to be prepaid are the same as those prevailing in the inland service of the United Kingdom, but in the cases of ships stationed abroad the postage home is 1d. for letters, 1d. each for postcards, and ½d. per 2 oz. for printed matter. As long as the correspondence is posted on board the ships in the special bag provided for the purpose these rates apply, and British stamps are valid for the prepayment of the postage even though the ships may be in the harbour of a foreign country. The ship's bags are sealed and landed at the first convenient port, or transferred to the first likely ship that is met, for conveyance to destination. In the outward direction a special bag for each ship is made up in the General Post Office in London, and is despatched under seal at the first available opportunity.

A book on the Post Office would not be complete without some reference to the boy messengers of the Department. They are certainly one of its activities. They have been called the aristocracy of the messenger world, for the State is in a position to pick and choose its servants. They are almost as well known to the public as the postmen.

No boy is accepted unless he has passed the seventh standard at school, and every candidate has to provide a satisfactory certificate of health from “his own medical attendant.” A boy of fourteen must also be over 4 feet 8 inches in height. In London the boys usually start at 7s. a week, rising 1s. a week annually to 11s.

The Post Office messenger certainly receives an excellent training in good habits, and the discipline he undergoes is excellent for him. He is required to be alert and resourceful, though perhaps he does not have the same opportunities for varied experience as the district messenger boy. No doubt his training is useful also for outside employment if he leaves the Service at the end of his time, but the boys' special qualifications are for Post Office service.

The boy messenger is especially interesting as a human type. He comes into a public office raw and untrained, and he usually leaves it a well-disciplined and decent-mannered man. If it unfortunately happens that discarded boy messengers frequently join the ranks of the unemployed, or even of the unemployable, it is difficult to believe that they can ever become hooligans. How is the boy licked into shape? First of all, in any large body of men or boys there is a recognised standard of conduct; even the boy who lives in the street is conscious of a standard of the street; but of course in a public office the standard is maintained also by rules and regulations. Perhaps we shall know these boys better, and besides obtain little glimpses into their lives, if I let them tell their own stories, by means of our old friend the written explanation.

The special feature of the boys' explanations is that there is nothing studied about their composition. As a rule, they are simple, direct, and unlaboured. They dispense with such trifles as punctuation, orthography, or syntax, but you feel when you are reading the documents that the boy is stating the facts as he knows them. It has been said that “it is better not to know too much than to know the things that ain't so,” and we forgive the form of this sentence because of the way it grips with the situation: it closes with the truth; there is nothing to be said in opposition to it, but its form is the form of the half-educated. So it is with the literary efforts of the boy messenger: they are fresh, human, and free from artifice. “Are you free from any bodily injury or defect?” was asked of a youthful applicant for a boy messengership. And he wrote down proudly, “Yes; I am in fine condition.”

Here is a snipping from official papers. It is on the printed form used in all cases of the written explanation.

There is no beating about the bush here. As Mr. Birrell said of Dr. Newman: “That love of putting the case most strongly against himself is only one of the lovely characteristics of the man.”

Another young hopeful had the misfortune to smash one of the office windows. An indignant Superintendent wanted to know the reason why. The lad made a clean breast of it. He filled in the departmental form giving all particulars, and he finished up with a fine piece of pleading. “I admit I threw the stone, but if the other boy had not ducked, the window would have been all right.”

The boys are indeed often very smart in their replies. One was asked to explain “why you were seen walking across the sorting-room with an unlighted cigarette in your mouth.” The answer was: “Because it is forbidden for me to light it in the office.”

As an instance of the smart messenger boy, let me tell a story. A young man, having missed a train at Victoria, despatched, with faint hope of its being delivered, a telegram to a young lady whom he should have met at East Croydon Station. The only possible address was of course “Miss X., waiting at East Croydon Station,” and great was his surprise when he found the young lady awaiting him, as the telegram had directed, at Reigate. The young lady told him she was one of a great number of ladies who were on the platform, but the boy, on looking round them, came up to her at once with “A telegram for you, miss.” Curious to know how he had detected the right addressee, she asked him the question, and he replied, “Because you looked so downhearted, miss.”

A messenger who was exceedingly troublesome, and who had already received several cautions for his conduct, gave in this touching explanation: “After being cautioned several times about misconducting myself, I tried to turn over a new leaf, but whatever I do it seems that every one is down on me. I try very hard to behave myself but I find that I cannot do so.” The truth must be told: his papers gave no indication of any new leaves.

A struggle between two boys in the sorting-room was explained in this way:—

“To the Postmaster: Messenger Smith called me a wooden head, so I poured hot tar over his dinner and punched him on the nose: hopeing this will meet with your approval.”

It is to children unused to the arts of diplomacy that we have to look for plain statements of facts as they are: we elders grow astute by experience, and we hedge and prevaricate. The following bears all the evidence of a real happening:—

“Messenger Halter: You are requested to furnish at once your explanation as to the delay in the delivery of message No. 30. You were turned out at 11.20 and did not return until 11.37. Please state whether you stopped on the road before delivering the message.”

“The Postmaster: I stopped and asked a boy if he had not only one handle on his barrow and he said no and I walked on again but the Gentleman saw me and asked me if I had a telegram for boston view and I said Yes and he said you silly fool Why did you Dam-weell stop and I said I was sorry and he said sorry by Dammed why did you stop with that boy you Dame fool I shall report you. You have made me lose the train.”

The following is also no doubt a true picture:—

“Robert Brown, No. 28: You are requested at once to furnish your explanation as to excessive time taken to go to ——”

“The Postmaster: When I got my message I went up High Street and through the market and delivered the message. When I was coming back, a horse which was in the park that I was walking along side of came over to me, so I stopped and patted it on the neck hoping it will never happen again.”

We are all interested in the story of a fight, especially under unequal conditions, and here is a thrilling account of an encounter between two boys, written by themselves. We shall not fail to admire the splendid calm of the boy clerk who, though struck in the pit of the stomach, with the addition of several kicks on the shins, still remembered he was the superior officer, with the right to caution a subordinate.

“Boy Messenger: To explain fully the circumstances which led up to being molested by a boy clerk on the 6th inst.”

“The Inspector: I was coming back from a wait case and I saw Messenger Jones through two cupboards and I called to him and the boy Clerk mentioned called me and gave me a wait case to take out and I told him that I did not know where to take it and he threw me outside. When I came back from the wait case he dragged me downstairs to the ground floor and kept hold of me while he was showing another boy clerk to get papers out. About ten minutes later he pushed me upstairs and bent my arms back and hurt my wrists at the time. He turned round on me all of a sudden and caught hold of my neck and pressed as hard as he could and wrung it. This happened on the First floor in the corridor.—E. C. P.”

Now listen to the boy clerk's explanation. Note the superior tone of the boy in a higher position: it is a case of dignity and impudence.

“The Superintendent: Respecting the complaint made by the messenger P——, I wish to point out that any injury done to him by myself was done under circumstances which could with every justification be called self-defence.

“I was asked by Mr. Green to forward a case to the Ledger Branch, and when I asked P—— to go he after being absent from his bench for a considerable time gave me a blank refusal. I prevailed upon him to go after threatening more than once to report him. On arriving back he on each occasion when going past my desk passed sarcastic and insulting remarks, such as 'fool' and 'swanker.'

“Later he actually asked me to go down to the basement and fight him though he is barely one-third my size, and for the second time threatened to blacken my eyes. He also deliberately gave me a blow in the pit of the stomach and several kicks upon the shins, upon which I again cautioned him. Taking no heed, he rushed at me with hands raised, and in the struggle which ensued he imagined he was badly hurt. Regretting having been in any way connected with this disturbance, I trust this explanation will be considered sufficient.”

The italics are mine: we cannot fail to admire the way in which, in most trying circumstances, the boy clerk maintained his dignity.

The fighting instincts of the average boy are indeed the chief difficulties of his Superintendent. “I was coming out of sorting-room ground floor when Messenger B—— and I knock up against one another. So I tapped him on the head and he tapped me back and one thing brought on another and it ended wrestling.”

A very pretty and reasonable story, which does not, however, prevent us forming a tolerably correct picture of the savage fight which actually took place.

Here are a few more explanations:—

“I had a pain in my leg which came on me all of a sudden, but I am sorry for this offence.”

“We were all whistling at the time but we made no noise.”

“I was watching an accident and had no idea what time it was, but I will watch that I stand and talk at no other accident.”

Another in rather an aggrieved mood says: “If you knew what it is to take half-an-hour to eat half-a-slice of bread you would know what it was to have a gumboil.” We think we understand.

Yet another: “He was telling me a story and I called him a liar, only I used stronger language.”

“I was taking a moonlight walk with my fiasco,” was the explanation of one boy.

And one boy asks for a day's leave. “I beg to apply for a holiday to attend my grandfather's funeral. He died of senile decay.”

Another boy's explanation of his delay in delivering a telegram was: “I went there and back as quick as I could and I will never let it occur again.”

The Post Office has from the earliest times drawn upon the boy population of this country to do a large portion of its work. The postboys were carrying letters across country three hundred years ago, though in many cases the term “boy” was merely an official designation, and the individual was nearer his second than his first childhood. The labour is cheap—that of course is an advantage in the eyes of the Treasury—but there is also a peculiar fitness in the employment of the young in work which above all things demands quickness, alertness, and a capacity for endurance.

We are approaching the end of our story, and it may not be out of place in this last chapter to say a few words concerning the Post Office as a whole, worked not by machinery but by human beings. Now what is called “the system” in human concerns influences more or less every individual. If you are a grocer “the system” is with you; the custom, the habit, and the public opinion of your trade will grow upon you, and your individuality and personal enterprise may in the end be crushed by “the system.”

So it is in the Post Office; nearly all the irritation which the public exhibits occasionally towards the Department is due to the fact that the official they have been dealing with is controlled by “the system.” And the larger, the more powerful the body, the greater is the power of “the system” over the individual. The outward and visible sign of the domination of “the system” is “red tape,” and it is found in the grocer's shop as well as in the Post Office.

A lady once wrote to the Controller of the Post Office Savings Bank this simple application: “Please send me a nomination form in the event of me dying in accordance with Rule No. 27.” Now, strange as it may seem, there is a type of official mind which sees nothing ridiculous in her application. Long years of official routine, and the observance of minute regulations on every point of official conduct, have the effect of implanting in many minds so great a reverence for the regulations which govern their occupations that they view it as only natural that life and death should be subject to official rules. It is only a small minority in any condition of life who are not controlled by “the system.” Why should we expect the minority to become a majority just because the persons involved possess Civil Service certificates?

Moreover, it is only a small minority anywhere who can be trusted to use their own judgment always or to work “the system” in the light of their own intelligence, and I venture to say that in the imperfect condition of the human race what is called “red tape” means security for the public. It is better to suffer from some hardship, owing to the personal application of a regulation framed not to meet one individual instance but an average of cases, than to run the risk of your official business being conducted by a man whose guiding star is supposed to be common sense alone, but whose own particular illumination is probably a mere twinkle, scarcely seen by the naked eye.

There is a delightful official phrase which is frequently addressed to complainants, and it runs something like this: “The regulation, which is framed under Act of Parliament, has been drawn up as much in the interests of the public as to safeguard the Department.” Both the public and the Department need to be protected from the capriciousness of the average official—who is also, it may be noted, the average man.

I remarked in a previous chapter that the British Government had a way of contracting itself out of its own laws, and the Postmaster-General often reserves to himself the right to contract himself out of his regulations. The phrase, “the discretion of the Postmaster-General,” is brought into play in cases of hardship, and it is through this loophole that the rigour of “the system” may become modified.

Now, roughly speaking, the discretion of the Postmaster-General can only be exercised in the General Post Office by officials who are in receipt of at least £500 a year, and the flexibility of “the system” depends, therefore, upon the personnel of a small group of men in each department. The rank and file carry out the regulations; certain members of the public consider that in their particular cases the regulations are unjust or inapplicable; they appeal to headquarters, and here it is where the discretionary powers of the Postmaster-General are exercised. I do not say this is a perfect arrangement: the man at headquarters, owing to his training under “the system,” is often afraid himself to use the discretion to which he is entitled, and he too falls back upon the rigidity of the regulations. But it works admirably when the official is equal to his responsibilities, and when the complainant has a legitimate grievance against the Department.

Many grievances against a public office arise, I am convinced, not out of the thing done or undone, but on account of the way complainants are sometimes approached. It is the officialism of the average official man which we dislike. A certain clergyman was once summoned to the presence of his bishop, a dignitary who was known throughout his diocese for his want of urbanity, and on leaving the august presence he was asked by a sympathising brother how he had fared. The clergyman simply threw up his hands despairingly and said: “He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who is able to abide his frost?”

There are too many officials in the public service who resemble this bishop: the influence of “the system” on their official characters has been to develop in them a sort of consciousness of caste. But I have written this story of the Post Office in vain if I have not brought out clearly the human side of the Department, and if I have not shown that, although it is in appearance and working a huge machine, yet the human factor counts in the highest as well as the lowest duties of the Service. And I hope I have proved my case that the Post Office is a live institution and adapts itself readily to the needs of the British people.