POST OFFICE BUILDINGS
"I don't think" was the terse though somewhat vulgar reply of a
well-known district officer on the western side of India when asked if
he would like to have a post office erected in a conspicuous place at
the head-quarters of his district. He was willing to give the site in
question for a clock tower, a public library or even a statue of one
of his predecessors, but a post office, "No, thank you." The reason
for this attitude may be easily understood by those who have seen the
ordinary Indian post office of a few years ago. It used generally to
be a rented building quite unsuited for the purpose and made perfectly
hideous by small additions and projections constructed from time to
time in order to meet demands for increased space. The windows and
doors were used not for light and air nor even for giving access to
the interior, but for business purposes. They were blocked up with the
exception of a small hole just the size of a pane of glass, through
which the members of the public had to try to get a clerk to attend
to their requirements. When a Government building existed it was very
little better, except in the matter of repairs. The interior of the
ordinary post office was a dreadful sight a few years ago, a mass of
untidy tables, a large number of cupboards, known in India as almirahs,
ill-designed sorting cases and dirt, this last article being the most
prevalent everywhere. Letters were sorted on the floor for convenience,
and the delivery table with its ragged occupants, who did duty for
postmen, was a sight for the gods.
The position of a post office in a town is a matter of the first
importance, but the chief object of the authorities in the early days
of the Imperial Post Office seems to have been economy. As a building
in a back street naturally costs less than one in a main street, many
of the city offices are hidden away in the most inaccessible slums. It
is, indeed, a case of Mohamed and the mountain, and the Post Office,
secure in its monopoly, was not going to afford any unnecessary
conveniences to its clients. Many of my readers will doubtless recall
some of those upstairs offices in big cities, which do an enormous
amount of work, especially in the afternoon, the approach being a
single staircase just broad enough for one person to ascend. Imagine
the turmoil at the busy hours of the day. In Bara Bazar, Calcutta, and
Benares City, two famous instances which come to mind at the moment,
where there is a heavy despatch of parcels, the confined space round
the parcel windows was the scene of a petty riot every afternoon. Such
a state of affairs could not exist for a month in a country where
the better class of people perform their own post office business;
unfortunately in India all this kind of work is done by native
messengers who are not particular about the surroundings of an office
and usually have plenty of time to spare. Things, however, improved
in recent years under the direction of Sir Arthur Fanshawe and Sir
Charles Stewart-Wilson, both of whom had the critical faculty strongly
developed. Assisted by the genius of Mr. James Begg, Consulting
Architect to the Government of India, they have done much to improve
the modern post office, with the result that the Department now has
some really fine buildings. For beauty of design the new Bombay General
Post Office, completed in 1910, is one of the finest in the East. The
reproduction of it in this book gives but little idea of its splendid
proportions, and its internal structure has been planned with a view to
facilitate postal work and to allow for future expansion.
The General Post Office in Calcutta was built in 1868 from designs made
by Mr. Granville, Architect to the Government of India. The site is of
great historical interest owing to its association with the tragedy
of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The building is hardly large enough
now for the great mass of work which it has to transact and, although
the removal of the Postmaster-General's Office and the Sorting Branch
has somewhat relieved the congestion, there is already a demand for
increased accommodation. The same thing has happened in Madras where
there is a large Post and Telegraph Office facing the sea, designed
by Mr. Chisholm and opened to the public in 1885. The expansion of
business has outgrown the capacity of the building, and the time has
come to construct a new post office and to use the present building as
a Telegraph Office. Most head offices and important sub-offices are now
designed to provide a proper hall for the public who wish to transact
business, with a counter for clerks and sufficient open space in the
building to allow each branch to work independently and in comfort
under the supervision of a responsible officer. At Lahore, Nagpur,
Patna, Chittagong, Bareilly, Rawalpindi, Cawnpore, Howrah, Poona,
Agra, Allahabad, Mandalay, Benares, Sholapur and Mount Road Madras,
excellent offices have been recently constructed, and the next few
years will see Rangoon, Delhi, Dacca, Darjeeling, Ajmere, Ahmedabad and
several other large towns provided with post office buildings, not only
scientifically planned, but handsomely designed.
Apart from its architectural features the essentials in a post office
building are very much those of a bank, namely, space, facility for
supervision and an arrangement of the branches dealing with the public,
so that anyone entering the office to do postal business can find
his way immediately to the clerk concerned. Space is most necessary,
especially in the sorting and delivery of mails. In crowded offices
thefts occur, packets of mails get mixed up and shot into wrong bags,
and proper supervision is almost impossible. The old Indian system of
letting the public stand in the veranda of the post office and transact
business through the windows of the buildings has always been fatal
to good and quick work. In the first place it is not easy to find the
proper window for the exact purpose one requires, and there are seldom
sufficient for all the branches. In the second place, when one has
discovered the right window, the clerk is seated inside some distance
away, and it is often difficult to attract his attention. The only
sensible arrangement is a hall with a proper counter and screen on
which the departments are clearly indicated, and the clerks sitting
right up face to face with the public. The postal clerk has the gift
of complete aloofness when his services are in the greatest request,
but it requires extra strong nerves to feign indifference to a man who
is looking straight at you two feet away and shouting his demands in
unintelligible Hindustani, especially if he hasn't yet breakfasted and
the weather is very hot. The real value of the counter is, in fine,
that it enables all work with the public to be performed in half the
time.
Except in the very largest offices where the postmaster sits in some
secluded abode like an Olympian god, the postmaster's seat should be
in the main office and readily accessible to the public. Deputy and
assistant postmasters are very fine fellows, but nothing can compensate
for the eagle eye of the Head. It is extraordinary how quickly a
delivery gets out when he is present to urge it along, and how swiftly
one gets one's money orders or savings bank deposits when he is looking
on. For this reason he should be always within hail and, if he can
accustom himself to deal courteously with the public and treat his
staff with justice and consideration, he will be the man that the Post
Office requires.
The policy in past years of obtaining rented buildings for post offices
has proved a serious misfortune to the Department. They are seldom
or never suitable for public offices, and the various attempts to
adapt them for postal purposes have been expensive and unsuccessful.
Every addition means an increase of rent and, with each renewal of
the lease, the rental is regularly enhanced. I don't think that it is
an exaggeration to say that throughout India the rents paid for Post
Office buildings have increased by 50 per cent in the last twenty-five
years. In many instances the total value of the house itself has been
paid many times over, and the Department still continues to pay an
exorbitant price for the privilege of occupying the ruins. No more
miserable or extravagant policy than this can be imagined, and in large
stations the Post Office is absolutely in the hands of the landlord who
can demand what he likes when a lease expires, a position which he is
inclined to take full advantage of. In recent years the folly of this
system has become more and more apparent, and efforts are now being
made to provide Government buildings for all important offices, but any
such scheme must necessarily take time since good sites in suitable
positions are seldom available and funds are strictly limited.
[Illustration: GENERAL POST OFFICE. BOMBAY]
A far-sighted man who thinks that his business will expand in time will
provide for such expansion even as a speculation and, when expansion
is a certainty as in the case of the Post Office which doubles its
business in ten years, to provide merely for the needs of the moment
is the falsest of false economy. The standard rule laid down by Sir
Charles Stewart-Wilson with respect to new buildings was that, when
a new post office is required, the space necessary for the office at
the time should be taken and multiplied by two. Then there would be
some hope of the accommodation being sufficient at all events for one
official generation. There is hardly a single office built more than
twenty years ago which is not now overcrowded and which will not have
to be enlarged at considerable expense. If this lesson is taken to
heart by the designers of our new post offices, they will earn the
gratitude of future generations of postmasters.