Life in the slow lane of the info superhighway

Date: 19/10/1995

By Geoff Meade

Good old Jacques Santer, trust him to keep the interests of Joe Public at the top of the agenda, even in a time of crisis.

What is Europe's biggest priority? Jobs. The preservation of.

What is Jacques' other priority? His job, the preservation of: avoiding a grisly fate at the hands of Euro MPs demanding Commission legal action against French nuclear testing.

Jacques spent last weekend sitting by the Commission's post box awaiting a crucial letter from Paris. He bit his nails, he paced the floor, and finally it arrived, complete with vital missing details of nuclear tests in the South Pacific which will help the Commission decide what, if anything, it will do about the naughty French.

But we could have known the outcome a week ago if Santer wasn't such an old softy. If he had ignored the imperative to preserve rapidly-disappearing postal jobs, Santer could have exchanged faxes with Paris, he could have Internetted them, he could have e-mailed them.

But instead he stuck a stamp on a letter and sat back and waited. Not just because he's a Luddite and a traditionalist, but because the posties of this world now need us more than we need them.

Commissioner Padraig Flynn summed it up this week when he said: “Whatever technological developments we may see, it is people who walk the highways and the byways delivering the mail.”

It certainly is: who else but people would walk the highways and byways?

But the point passed MEPs by when Santer addressed them last week. They were aghast. They shook their heads in disbelief.

The leader of the Socialists, Pauline Green, was outraged by the latest developments. “The credibility of the European Commission is on the line before the people of Europe,” she thundered.

Santer's remark had seemed innocent enough: “We are writing to Paris tomorrow seeking more information about the second nuclear test. We are asking France to reply as soon as possible.”

There was a hush. Horror was on every face. “You're writing?” said Mrs Green's expression. “A letter?” EPP leader Wilfried Martens looked just as amazed: “What the hell happened to the information superhighway?” said his deep frown.

The answer, apart from the need to make sure people still walk the highways and byways, is that the highway is blocked by Luddites, nose to tail, all insisting the old ways are the best. I'm one of them. If God had wanted us to communicate via chips and modems and satellites, he would have put a jack plug where your belly button is and the way things are going, that will be the next step.

Santer is obviously not impressed by all this stuff, whatever the Commission's 1995 work programme says about communications and the information society. And it says a lot. Apparently we need an action plan and a thorough investigation of “social, societal and cultural issues”.

Until that is done, Santer made clear last week, pass him a manila envelope and a 16 Belgian franc stamp please. And keep the posties in work.

He might as well have told the MEPs that he was sending a pony and trap to Paris to deliver a note scrawled in quill pen and bearing the Commission's seal. Imagine him standing outside the Breydel, silver hair cascading to his shoulders, velvet burgundy cape sweeping the floor, ruby ring sparkling on his finger. With a flourish he hands over the vital document and sends the messenger on his way: “Prithee, tarry not a moment longer, oh noble D-grade, but get thee hence to Paris with all haste. Greenpeace even now approaches the gates. Rest ye not until this note is safe in the hands of Chirac. Now go! And Godspeed! May fortune attend your every step!” Clippety clop, clippety clop, exit stage left.

A letter? When did anyone last use the postal service to resolve urgent affairs of state?

“These are complex and sensitive issues,” Santer explained to the Parliament. “The Commission has been working conscientiously and with determination, but all of this takes time.”

Sure it does. First you've got to find a stamp, address the envelope, checking the postcode of course, and then find someone willing to pop out to the postbox. Then there's the long wait for a reply.

The trouble with Santer, shared by many of us, is that he's trotting down the slow lane of the information superhighway in a horse-drawn carriage. He thinks Compuserve is a take-away food chain, he thinks the Internet is a high-speed rail link, he thinks the Worldwide Web is an international federation of spider-lovers. As for e-mail, he's still trying to establish what happened to a, b, c and d mail.

Have you seen the World Trade Organisation's new Internet address? They want you to write to http://www.unicc.org./wto. Try it on your keyboard. It takes ages to write, ages to correct and there's not even a postcode. And where is this message going? Into some electronic void to be read by any old Tom, Dick or Harry.

No, Jacques, you stick with the postal service. You know where you are with a good old-fashioned letter, and you're quietly doing your bit to preserve good old-fashioned jobs.

The system is fighting back, too: we've already got self-sealing envelopes and now Spain is leading the way with postcards which have built-in stamps. And please note that the Commission's work programme includes a passage on postal services, including proposals for common universal service definition, quality of services and technical standardisation. That should see off the opposition.

And if saving the postal service means waiting a few extra days to resolve the issue of French nuclear tests and the fate of the Polynesian islands, so be it.

We can't throw away our heritage because of some passing electronic fad, now can we?