Note 757 — APPENDIXES

"It is wholly misleading to point to the fact that the business of the Post Office now yields a very considerable profit, and to suggest that increased remuneration can easily be provided from that source. That profit is not in a bag to be drawn upon at will. It goes into the National Exchequer, and forms part of the revenue of the country, and if two or three millions is taken from it, the deficit in the Exchequer must be made good in other ways. And it has never been admitted, nor can it now be admitted, that the profits of the Post Office belong in equity to the staff rather than to the taxpayer. The Post Office is not like a private business. Parliament has established a monopoly, and has fixed certain rates of postage. If Parliament chose to relax that monopoly, or to reduce those rates of postage, the profit would straightway disappear. It does not do so, because it desires to retain for the Exchequer the sums so brought.

"Parliament has also established the sixpenny telegram, extended the telegraph service into remote rural districts, and has given very cheap rates to the Press. This has resulted in the telegraphs being worked at a loss of over a million a year. No one would suggest that it would be just, because of this loss, to reduce the wages of the men and women employed in the telegraph service, and it is equally beside the mark to quote the profits on the postal side as though the pay of the staff should be determined by their amount."—The Right Hon. Herbert Samuel, British Postmaster General, to a deputation from the staff, 19th November 1913.