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

It is only a little over eighty years since the comparatively small office at Lombard Street housed the whole staff of the London chief office. The change has been tremendous, but no more in proportion to the population than other activities of life. Post Office servants often point with pride to what their Department has achieved, but the truth must be told, and it is that the credit cannot be claimed by the officials. We might almost say that, as far as the Department is concerned, the increase is mostly unearned increment. The increase in population, and especially the advance in the means of communication, are the two chief causes; it is the people who have made the Post Office, not the officials. A retiring postmaster, or even a retiring Postmaster-General, will sometimes tell us in round figures what has been accomplished under his rule. “Alone I did it” is sometimes the burden of these valedictory speeches. But the true explanation lies often in the birth-rate or in the opening of a new railway, and the Post Office reaps what others have sown. And there have been times when the Post Office administrator, proud of what he has done and what his Department is doing, has tried to say “Thus far shalt thou go and no further” to the reformers. “Why not remain satisfied with the perfection I have been the humble means of securing?” The official mind usually requires some driving force from outside before it can see the necessity for another advance.