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

There are two or three general tender sales of old stores in the year, and special sales of copper and lead are arranged whenever the accumulations or the state of the market require it. But the scrap-heap of the Post Office is of the dimensions of a mountain. There are also returned postal stores, which come under the name of condemned material. These are sold for what they will fetch. In one year the Department obtained £1800 for clothing and rags, £850 for string, and £700 for boots. Accumulations of used string are disposed of also locally by certain postmasters. Here is indeed an example in domestic economy. The Stores supply in response to requisitions a quantity of postal stores to the Colonies and British post offices abroad. There are British post offices at Ascension, Beyrout, Constantinople, Panama, Salonica, Smyrna, and Tangier. I must not omit to mention the Awards Committee of the Post Office, which exists to encourage workmen and other Post Office servants to bring forward suggestions for improvements in machinery, tools, apparatus, &c., and lists of the awards are published from time to time in the Post Office Circular. The Postmaster-General, in a recent report, stated that “since the operations of the Committee began, the Post Office workmen have displayed greater interest in their work.” There is a systematic inspection of the conditions of employment under Post Office contractors. The amended Fair Wages Resolution passed by the House of Commons on the 10th March 1909 is now inserted in all contracts for Post Office stores, and firms desiring to be added to the official lists of contractors are required to give an undertaking that they will conform strictly to the conditions of this Resolution. A clause is also introduced into head-dress and clothing contracts prescribing minimum wages for women and girl workers.