PACE AT THE POST OFFICE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—So many bouquets have lately been bestowed upon the Post Office—one imagines for almost the first time in its history—that it was refreshing to find a few much-needed home-truths in your admirable article of October 5th.
I entirely agree that the huge annual surplus ought to be used to reduce the rate of postage to Id. ; this step would, I am sure, justify itself financially, and would be of incalculable benefit to our home trade. Li Hung Chang, when he visited this country, remarked that the British Post Office treated letters like diamonds—an observation of truly Oriental subtlety. Time and again, when exasperated at inexcusable delays, I have thought of his words : after all, we don't like to part with precious stones !
Your contention that letter deliveries could be speeded-up is, I think, unanswerable. For some twenty-five years I have, like Andrew Fairservice, been fighting wild beasts at Ephesus in this regard. My firm for long rented a private box at the Glasgow G.P.O., but instead of receiving letters earlier, as we naturally had expected, there was sometimes a delay of seven hours before correspondence was sorted and put in the box—incredible but true. There is much room for accelera- tion of deliveries in places near large cities. For example, the second English mail is delivered here (in the heart of Glasgow) between 10 and 11 a.m., but in a town of 80,000 inhabitants, twenty-three miles distant, it is not received till 2 p.m. Lately I sent a letter to an old and famous firm who for many years were in Rood Lane, E.C. 3, but who removed some time ago to Mincing Lane, not far away. Inadvertently the old address was put on the envelope, with the result that the letter was returned. undelivered, after a delay of five days. One minute would have sufficed for the Post Office to make the correction.
Sir Kingsley Wood has worked wonders in other direc- tions ; if he can overcome the intransigence not only of the Chancellor but of a Department still strangled with red tape, future generations will rise up and call him blessed.—I am,
Sir, yours very truly, . WESTWOOD MACNEILL. 53 Waterloo Street, Glusgow, C.o.
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