A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
FOR reasons which may possibly be adequate the Post Office appears to lag behind any other Government department in getting back to pre-war standards of efficiency in public service. Not only has the evening shilling telephone call disappeared (the charge is now as. 6d.) but the hours during which this cheap rate applies are now from 6.3o to 9.3o instead of from 6 o'clock to midnight. Worse still is the curtailment of postal collections and deliveries, and worst feature of that the abolition in London of any ordinary collec- tion later than 6.3o. Digressing on to this point in the course of the telephone debate last Monday, the Postmaster-General marshalled admirably all the arguments in favour of restoring this collection— particularly where the morning delivery is so late that the business man does not get his letters before leaving for his office. Even apart from this letters arrive by other day deliveries, and it is constantly a grave inconvenience, on arriving home after 6.3o, to be unable to write and post a letter with any prospect of its being delivered the next day except in the immediate locality. Having pointed all this out, Mr. Paling ended lamely with the excuse that the difficulty was labour. If by that he meant shortage of labour, it is a difficulty that may not last very long. If he meant the attitude of labour, that is another story. How far is it the case that the postal union con- cerned is resolutely opposed to late collections ? If that is so, is it taken for granted by the P.M.G. that the convenience of some millions of the public must of course be sacrificed to the convenience of a few hundred postmen ?
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