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

The Civil Service is not a field which provides scope for a variety of different characters and temperaments. Forty-nine out of fifty posts are of a more or less routine character, and the men who succeed are often those whose minds move with ease in a groove, or they are men who, by long practice and severe discipline, have trained their minds to act with the finish and regularity of a machine. Some of the most successful men in the lower branches of the Service, when promoted to positions where some initiative and diplomacy are required, are obvious failures. The very name “permanent official” is with some people a byword for red-tapeism, obstinacy, circumlocution, and want of imagination, and this is often due to the fact, that owing to their training in the lower branches, many of these men belong to the type who make excellent servants but indifferent masters. Officialism enters into the very tissue of their being. They have allowed it to grow upon them until it has sucked up every trace of healthy variety or originality they may have formerly possessed, and though they be promoted to high places and obtain large salaries, they too often bring the service to discredit in the eyes of the public. It is not because they do not possess sufficient zeal: it is rather because they are righteous overmuch.