" CASH ON DELIVERY."
IT is inevitable, in the changing and chopping involved in the reconstruction of a Cabinet, that the work of public Departments must to a certain extent suffer, but they suffer in varying degrees. Perhaps during the last eighteen years the Department of the Post Office has suffered as much as any other, though the effects of an imperfectly worked Post Office are doubtless not so apparent or so serious as the effects of a blundering and miscalculating War Office. Since June, 1885, when Lord Salisbury first became Prime Minister, there have been no fewer than ten Postmaster-Generals. Now, no Depart- ment supposed to be worked on sound business lines, and intended to fulfil modern demands in the way of speed and economy, can stand ten changes in its managership in eighteen years without suffering. Each new Postmaster- General is bound to take time before he gets into the swing of things, and while he is learning his work the business of the Department stands still. The result, so far as progress and improvement on the part of the Department are concerned, is the same paralysis as hampered Athenian armies commanded by boards of ten generals, each supreme in turn, and each liable to find the work he began on one day altered or stopped by his successor on the next. Improvements are considered, but only rarely effected.
Take, for example, as an instance of an improvement in Post Office methods which could be effected, or, rather, an institution which the Post Office could give us,—the "cash- on-delivery" system. Practically all civilised countries have adopted it, or something like it ; the people of Great Britain alone are unprovided with this means of doing business quickly and safely. And what stands in the way? It is really rather difficult to see. One of the last things that Mr. Austen Chamberlain did before he left the Post Office was to receive a deputation on this question. The deputation represented over two hundred of the leading trading and manufacturing firms of the kingdom, and urgently advocated the adoption of the " cash-on-delivery" system.. Mr. Austen Chamberlain's reply was a little sur- prising, though we have no doubt that he is in possession of facts which would make the provision of the system seem a little more difficult for an English Postmaster-General than it has been found to be by the postal authorities of Germany, France, Australia, and India. He said in effect that he, personally, was in favour of instituting the system, but that the public would not allow him to institute it. " The question was not a new one, and had been under the consideration of his predecessors and. himself." (Just in the same way did the Athenian generals consider the proper method of giving battle to the enemy.) " The Post Office," he went on to say, " had been for many years ready to make this reform, and had been in no way opposed to the change, but had had to bear the blame for no progress being made, although obstruction had not come from inside the Post Office, but from out- side." At first sight this would look almost as if Mr. Austen Chamberlain meant that there were objections made by the Treasury ; but seemingly he did not mean that, for he ended his speech by observing that " before the advance desired could be made, public opinion required further education." If that is all that is required, the present Postmaster-General need not, surely, hesitate much longer before carrying the ideas of his predecessors into practice. There is, so far as any one outside the Post Office can see, no need. to educate public opinion to the desire for increased postal and business facilities. Public opinion did not have to be educated to the desire for six- penny instead of shilling telegrams, or for penny postage- stamps. Merely the public were grateful for a good thing when they got it. Only a very small proportion of Englishmen, before 1840, realised what a benefit the penny post would prove to be ; but Sir Rowland Hill— dismissed from office by the Government two years after the penny post was established—was presented by the nation with a testimonial of £13,000. It is not public opinion which has stood in the way of postal reform.
What would be possible if a "cash-on-delivery " system were adopted ? The general idea of the system, of course, is that it should be possible for an intending purchaser to order goods from a tradesman and pay for them when delivered at his door, the Post Office undertaking to accept the goods from the tradesman and give him the money collected. from the purchaser. But take a concrete example. Mrs. Smith, living at Deepdene Lodge, Bramp- ton-among-the-Roses—or anywhere in the country, and not in a town where there are large shops capable of supplying her with anything she wants at a moment's notice— suddenly finds that she wants something in a hurry. It may be something to add to the dinner menu next day,— perhaps her husband has telegraphed that he is bringing down a couple of friends ; it may be that she has suddenly remembered a relative's birthday and wants to get a present ; it may be that she has run short of some com- modity urgently needed for household purposes ; it may be that she is merely possessed with the idea that she would like to have something that she has seen in the printed catalogue of a shop in a town perhaps a hundred miles away. Anyhow, she wants something in a hurry. As things are at present, what can she do ? Of course, it must be premised that, though the firm from whom she wishes to purchase goods is known to her, she is not known to the firm : otherwise, she would merely have to write or telegraph asking for what she wanted and she would get it, the firm giving her credit. But if she knows that the firm will not give her credit, she must pay beforehand for the goods she wants ; that is, her letter asking for the goods to be sent to her must be accompanied by a cheque or a postal order, or she must telegraph the money if the hurry is desperate. What, then, must she do to be sure of getting what she wants by a certain time She cannot send a cheque, for if she is unknown to the firm the business of inquiring whether or not she has a balance at the bank takes too much time ; if she gets a postal order she has to send a servant to the post-office to get it, and the post-office may be a long way distant from her house,—also it may be extremely incon- venient to spare a servant for the errand. She is hedged. round with small difficulties, it is clear, difficulties which militate against the ideal of good trading,—namely, the easy exchange of commodities. Could she not, then, obtain commodities more easily if the Post Office helped her more than it does ? And would it not be "good for trade" if she could do so? Clearly it would. Let us then sketch out a plan of what might happen if the "cash-on-delivery" system were inaugurated by the Post Office, and let the conditions which would prevail under such a system be contrasted with the conditions which prevail to-day.
Clearly a great point to aim at in regard to any new plan would be this, that both buyer and seller should be given as little trouble as possible. Of course, trouble must be taken somewhere, and if buyer and seller do not take it all, some extra trouble must be taken by somebody else. Why not by a Government Department the officials of which are paid by public money? But, as a matter of fact, very little extra trouble would have to be taken by anybody; and in any case the answer to all objections urging that the " cash-on-delivery " system would be difficult in England is to be found in the uncontradicted fact that it has been proved to be not only possible, but easily worked, on the Continent, in Australia, and in India. If what is found possible in India, so far as Post Office organisation is concerned, is impossible in Great Britain and Ireland, there is something radically wrong somewhere. But the system would be possible, and easily worked. All that the intending purchaser would have to do under some such plan as the two hundred leading firms who sent a deputation to Mr. Austen Chamberlain suggested would be to write or telegraph to the firm from whom he or she wished to purchase goods saying : "Please send me (whatever is wanted) ; c.o.d.—Smith, Deepdene, Brampton." The letter or telegram would be despatched. The firm receiving the order would pack up the goods and would hand them in at the nearest post- office, stating the value of the goods enclosed. (Safeguards could easily be devised to prevent theft and forgery ; but, in any case, the difficulty of safeguarding against forgery would be no greater than that which confronts every bank manager.) The Post Office would pay the firm the value of the goods sent, either at once or after collection, and would collect that sum at the other end from the buyer, charging, perhaps, a small commission for doing so. But the amount of that commission should be decided with regard to the broad fact that the Post Office exists first and foremost as a public servant, not first and fore- most as an easy means of raising revenue,—one which more Chancellors of the Exchequer than one have regarded it. The commission charged should be as small as possible,— the main object being that the State's public Depart- ments should give every possible facility for the country's trade.
Of course, plenty of small objections crop up,—the difficulty of being sure that the depositor of goods with the Post Office is a bond-fide trader, willing to refund if the purchaser will not buy ; the reluctance of the English housewife to pay for goods unless she has thoroughly in- spected them, and the consequent delay of the postman's round. We shall not consider such objections here. They are all met by the answer that such a system has been found possible and profitable elsewhere. We will only add that Lord Cromer, as Mr. Austen Chamberlain stated on October 2nd, in his Reports on Egypt has " called atten- tion to the absence of facilities for the delivery and return of cash-on-delivery goods from Great Britain, while such a system existed between Egypt and other countries." Those facilities exist between " Egypt and other coun- tries," but not between an English country house and an English town. The Postmaster-General was pessimistic. That sentence of Lord Cromer's is all the " education " needed.
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