Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/289

 to contribute something more to the up-keep of the State than his neighbour who is too lazy, too ignorant or too callous to trouble himself with letter-writing. No doubt it is impossible, without a loss which would amount to subsidising in an equally objectionable manner, the users of the post-office, to conduct that department except at a profit of some sort: but it surely will not be pretended that it could not be conducted without exacting such a surplus as the post-office does annually contribute to the Budget. The vicious manner in which we treat the postal service as a sort of trading department, expected to yield the Chancellor of the Exchequer a convenient sum towards his expenditure, is illustrated by the disgraceful underpayment of the minor officials, such as postmen, small post-masters, telegraph messengers and the like. The post-office buys its labour in the cheapest market: there is but too much reason for the belief that it treats with oppressive harshness attempts on the part of its servants to better their wages by organisation: and when reproved in the House of Commons for sweating his work-people, a postmaster-general can always reply, amid applause, that he dare not embarrass his right-honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The polity of the enlightened future will assuredly desist from penalising intelligence, enterprise, and the other com-