Even the most tolerant citizen is apt to be thrown off his balance when he contemplates the gaps in his letter mail, whatever ihe emergency may be. That, of course, is in a sense a tribute to the excellence of the reputation which the "Post Office establishes in serving the public. Its regular and imperturbable delivery and carriage of mails by all kinds of transport, through all sorts of vicissitudes, are taken for granted. The possibility of a breakdown is not taken into account. It is assumed that lapses occur and the broad back of the Post Office frequently carries the burden of peccadilloes which it might be inconvenient frankly for the individual to admit, such as the delay in acknowledging an invitation to dinner or some remissness in maintaining conjugal correspondence. Just now the Post Office has faced a major crisis which has also afflicted the routine of the ordinary citizen, but whereas he is fully aware of the limitations on his own actions, he is not so quick to grasp the significance of this condition of affairs to the Post Office. He may even imagine that by some tour de force, the secret of which it has acquired in a long experience of catastrophic diversions, it can ride the whirlwind like Addison's hero and direct the storm regardless of physical, psychological, political or polemical actualities. What are the facts? Two months ago the tempest burst in Shanghai. The headquarters of the Post Office became untenable for a large proportion of its staff. Communications at one fell stroke were interrupted. Since that disaster occurred the postal officials have been picking themselves up, as it were, collecting the scattered toys, mending the broken dolls, searching for the missing links and generally endeavouring to behave as if bombardments, bombings and booms were all part of the procedure prescribed by its admirable regulations.
It would be idle to deny that chaos came. Indeed the Postal! Commissioner would be the first to admit it.
For some time Shanghai seemed to be living in the midst of a dumb forgotten world. For a longer time the reluctance of outside mails to penetrate into this seclusion on the Whangpoo was patently obvious. When they did start to enter they cast to the winds all study of the table of precedence or chronology. Tht first came last and the last first so that London's views in mid-August were read by affectionate friends in Shanghai long before those of the immediately preceding July. Some events in Europe in that inaccessible period never happened at all for they struck a blind spot in Shanghai's news absorption. Nor did local correspondence fare much better. Invitations to dine were received several days after the date fixed for the dinner; bills seemed very quickly to take advantage of the recovery of postal morale for they may be said to have been usually the first to appear on hall tables, with, of course, the polite intimation that owing to the dearth of shroffs—afflicted with unexpected coyness—cash on the nail would be delightful Gradually the local delivery reasserted itself. Depression on that point persisted but, before it had had time to acquire a settled habit, it seemed that the time-honoured struggle between the chit-book and the postman was again being determined in favour of the green-coated functionary. There remained the communications with the interior and the coastal ports. There far greater difficulties obstructed restoration. Train services had been dislocated, aeroplanes were forced to abandon. civil occupations for more deadly enterprises, ships could not tell when, where or how they were going. The mails themselves could not gauge their own capacity. They could not even tell whether they could carry printed matter as well as script. The post office had been forced to seek various temporary refuges for its different labours. At headquarters the superior staff still held its ground; the dead letter office which benevolently exists to correct the folly of letter-writers also refused to budge. Other branches sought the hospitality of private houses and there boudoirs, pantries and attics were adapted with difficulty to the habits and customs of the sorter.
This chaos is now believed to have been brought under control. It is still chaos, it is officially declared, but an orderly chaos. The staff of employees have been completely remobilized and they are tackling the daily spate of correspondence with strict attention to duty. Letter boxes are being cleared and the mail bags made up to be carried by the first ship available according to the cheerfully expectant schedules issued by the shipping companies. It is admitted that these schedules are subject to variation by reason of the erratic conditions governing the despatch and reception of vessels, but now that the acute strain of the disorganization is easing the gradual assertion of routine may come. The post office officials collect and distribute. They have to leave the actual carriage to various agencies which themselves are specially afflicted by the prevailing commotion, as a moment's thought will ascertain. The mails may be delayed but as mails they must continue to haunt the lines of communication, however prolonged and contorted, until their destination has been reached. In the meantime the gradual improvement in the means of transport will accelerate and correct the services. Breakdowns cannot be judiciously announced to the public for frequently their actual location cannot be immediately discerned by the Post Office which in truth is not responsible for them. Inquiries are set on foot with the object of ensuring that the transmission process is continued despite the interruptions, Generally it may be stated that the Post Office should be supported in its efforts to restore the prescribed routine; provisional remedies may have their merits but they can only be provisional. Thus it has been suggested that more use might be made of letter boxes on the ships. This would prove impracticable once it were widely applied for the ships would soon be unable to handle the bulk of correspondence involved. Therefore the public is advised to be patient, to trust the Post Office in its drive for recovery, and to commend it for its gallant ingenuity in solve ing some of the most intricate puzzles ever presented to an administration in its position,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.