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

CHAPTER XXIV OLD AGE PENSIONS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES OF THE POST OFFICE 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.