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

Then there is the familiar illustration of the post office existing in every village and town. What other authority would think of touching the unremunerative parts of the country, or would think it worth while to take up the business which the Post Office now undertakes as a matter of course? If the two services were separated all this plant and accommodation would have to be duplicated (or dropped) for telephones. All the work would have to be controlled by officials just as at present, with this difference, that they would be entirely free from the effects of popular criticism and control. Everybody claims the right to attack a Department of the State, and if their grievances are not attended to, the member of Parliament for their constituency can ask a question in the House of Commons. The Postmaster-General is considered fair game for attack by every telephone subscriber; far less satisfaction would be got out of a dispute with an official not directly responsible to Parliament. A telephone subscriber, writing from the Junior Constitutional Club in reply to a pressing request for payment of subscription, wrote: “Anyhow, £5 is more easily paid than £8 at the present moment. I don't suppose the P.M.G. is quite so short for a day or two as I am.” And in a further letter he said: “It would be an act of grace on the part of an exalted and powerful man like the P.M.G. to show clemency under the cruel circumstances and forego his rights.”