A growing proportion of the permanent clerical staff consists of women. At present they are restricted mainly to the account work of the Department; they keep the ledgers of the Savings Bank, they do work in the Money Order and Postal Order offices, and in the Accountant-General's Department. Their scales of pay are as a rule considerably lower than those of the men clerks, and hitherto they have been employed by the State mainly on account of economy. But the women have great ambitions; they have an association, the chief demand of which is equal pay for men and women, and entrance to the Service by the same examination. The advance and success of the woman's movement have had a great influence on the ambitions and hopes of the women clerks, and female employment in the Post Office is probably entering on a new phase. The economical advantage to the State is already not so marked as it used to be, as the commencing salaries of large numbers of the male staff have been reduced, and there is one department at least where the women in their earlier years of service are paid higher salaries than are large numbers of the men. If this latter policy is pursued it means the beginning of a revolution and the upsetting of the old-fashioned social order. The women do their work excellently, and they only ask to be allowed to establish their claim to be able to perform the highest duties that are given to clerks in the Post Office. The women also, it will be seen, are becoming possessed by esprit de corps, the note of the permanent staff of the General Post Office.
I have only one word to say in conclusion. Esprit de corps is a virtue I have claimed for the permanent staff; but this virtue, like all others, has its defects, and one of these is the state of mind which it induces in an official, to look at his Department as an organisation which has already done a maximum amount of good for the public. If you mildly suggest that much remains to be accomplished, he is apt to regard your remark as a want of confidence in himself. It is this attitude on his part which often explains the bad reputation which the term “permanent official” occupies in the minds of the public.
CHAPTER XX
THE HEAD POSTMASTER
The supporters of an Established Church have often argued that the presence in any town or village of a State official pledged to the promotion of righteousness and the spiritual life is a national asset, and that it is to the advantage of every citizen to have a centre of sweet reasonableness provided for him at the rectory or vicarage. It is certainly a tradition of English country life to look to the clergyman of a parish to take the lead in many local matters, especially in those of a philanthropic character. But there is also in every village and town another State official who in consequence of the varied nature of his duties is the guide and counsellor of the public in a number of their temporal concerns, and who is by virtue of his office appealed to constantly on matters which lie far outside his official labours. For he is always “On his Majesty's Service,” and he is expected to live up to that position, to be a walking Encyclopedia Britannica, a local Who's Who? a financial adviser, a boarding and lodging house agent, and to know everything, in fact, which the clergyman does not know, and is not expected to know. The Post Office is regarded not so much as a centre of sweet reasonableness as a centre of light and information which can be applied to without money and without price. The growth in the importance of the office of postmaster has been continuous since the earliest days of the Service, and this is of course easily explained by the story of the Post Office which I have been telling. At first, as I have already pointed out, the postmaster was usually an innkeeper. He provided horses for the King's posts, and it has to be admitted that for this purpose he selected as a rule the worst that were in his possession. The duty of receiving and despatching letters was left to a waiter or chambermaid, and frequently, as there was no separate place set apart for Post Office work, letters were sorted in the bar. A surveyor reported on one occasion that “the head ostler was often the postmaster's prime minister on matters relating to the mails.” When the mail coaches were put on the road, it was felt desirable that the innkeepers should no longer be postmasters, and a change was gradually introduced in the conditions under which the office was held. For a great number of years in most towns of the kingdom the postmastership was held by a local tradesman, and he carried on his own business at the same time, just as sub-postmasters do at the present day.
The change was certainly for the benefit of the public, and the mail service was treated more seriously by the postmaster. In some ways he was a more important public servant than he is to-day. In the days before telegraphy he was also a central news agency. A circular was issued to all postmasters in 1812 in these terms:—
“To all Postmasters, G.P.O.
“April 1812.
“It has long been an instruction to many of the postmasters and agents that they should transmit to me for the information of his Majesty's Postmaster-General an immediate account of all remarkable occurrences, that the same may be communicated if necessary to his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, and you will not fail to act in conformity thereto. Your assured friend,
“Francis Freeling, Secretary.”
That injunction has become a dead letter, and the most that a postmaster is expected to do in this direction is to note any references in the local press to matters relating to the Department, and to send copies of the newspapers to the Secretary, General Post Office.