The post office and its story an interesting account of the activities of a great government department

The Post Office is always delighted to hear of its difficulties being adjusted by the complainants themselves: it can rarely speak out its own mind to the obtuse, the ignorant, and the careless. And it is not the uneducated folk who give the most trouble. In the autumn of 1910 there appeared in the Morning Post a letter signed “John Brown,” and he described himself as “senior partner in the firm of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, Dumpington House, Little Britain.” The letter was obviously written sarcastically, and was a protest from a typical Briton's point of view against compulsory service, on the ground that it would mean interference with his profit-mongering and the curtailment of many of his luxuries. This is the kind of argument he used. “I have often to sign my name fifty times in the course of the day— a hard-working man of business. I must have some relaxation, and how could I obtain this if I were forced to sell my yacht and give up my moor in Scotland, to say nothing of my fishing in Norway. What, again, would my wife and family do without the little villa in the Riviera to fly to from the rigours of an English winter. And what, I should like to know, would my friends say, and how long should I retain them, if I had to make these enormous sacrifices, and all to please a parcel of scaremongers with no knowledge of business, no sense of duty, no appreciation of the claims of a man who would get on in the world and make a figure in the social life of the community?”