Читать книгу A history of postal agitation from fifty years ago till the present day - H. G. Swift - Страница 10

GROWING DISCONTENT AMONG LETTER-CARRIERS—PROHIBITION OF PUBLIC MEETING—THE FRANCHISE AMONG POSTAL SERVANTS AND ITS HISTORY

For another ten years practically the authorities allowed the malcontents to stew in their own juice.

There was, however, some slight attempt on the part of the letter-carriers to again bring their grievances under notice in 1858 by holding another public meeting in the south-western district of London. This meeting, in the newspaper reports of which the names of the speakers were concealed, for that reason principally, incurred the serious disapprobation of the authorities, and it was honoured with special reference in the Fifth Annual Report of the Postmaster-General. Therein the letter-carriers were severely rebuked for not adopting the same regular course which had hitherto failed to bring them satisfaction. One or two passages are instructive. Instead of the proceedings being “conducted in an open, manly, and respectful manner, the meeting referred to was held away from the ordinary place of employment, and speeches were made containing statements which the men who uttered them must have known to be false, but from the consequences of which they endeavoured to screen themselves by concealing their names.” Lord Colchester, the then Postmaster-General, took the opportunity to warn the letter-carriers “against the machinations of discarded officers who, reckless of the ruin they may bring upon others, strive to spread disaffection in the department from which they themselves have been removed.” Coupled with this warning there was a half promise that, though their position was, as was maintained, a very enviable one, their grievances would be further looked into—providing they complained no further and held no more meetings.

A year or so later, in 1860, owing to the persistent representations made by the various bodies comprising the circulating department, in which they complained of insufficient remuneration and other grievances, an Inter-departmental Committee of Inquiry was held, composed of the principal authorities, assisted by the Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury. This committee occupied itself with the subject matter of the memorials which had been presented. The result was a report in which they recommended a slight increase of force, and a small increase in wages. Whatever the increase of force that was recommended, it was not before it was needed. As for the increase of wages it was not only insignificant, but the manner of its application betrayed it at once as only a temporary stop-gap hesitatingly offered by a parsimonious department anxious to obtain the most credit out of the transaction. Before the public the letter-carriers were represented as coming in for another departmental legacy, but the microscopic benefit was still further diminished by being confined to the “men now in the service,” so that “men newly appointed to the minor establishment would come in on the old and lesser rates of pay.” Even this slight improvement in the conditions of the service was to be confined to the men who had agitated and put the department and its Inter-departmental Committee to some little trouble and expense.

In the year 1866 Lord Stanley of Alderley, then Postmaster-General, felt constrained to prohibit all outside public meetings which were called for purposes of promoting agitation among discontented postal officials. Lord Stanley issued an order prohibiting such open meetings on pain of dismissal. However it may have been justified at the period of its introduction, it is interesting to note that successive Postmasters-General allowed it to remain practically in abeyance for the next twenty-five years. Either Lord Stanley’s order was forgotten, even in the most stormy periods between 1871 and 1874, or the different public heads of the department felt a reluctance to reintroduce it. It was not till 1890 that a definite prohibition of the right of public meeting based on this order was issued by Mr. Raikes.

The London letter-carriers at this period of 1866 were in a highly-dissatisfied state, notwithstanding that on March 22, 1865, there had been a slight revision in the scales of pay for sorters, stampers, letter-carriers, and supplementary letter-carriers. The latter were in receipt of eighteen shillings, while two classes of letter-carriers went from twenty shillings to twenty-five, and from twenty-six to thirty shillings a week. In introducing this improved scale of pay in a circular memorandum, the Postmaster-General did not forget to impress on the lucky recipients that “the benefit of their places is by no means confined to their bare wages, and that this is especially so in the case of the letter-carriers.” They were also once more reminded of the amounts they received from the public “in gratuities at Christmas—a sum which, if divided equally and spread over the whole year, would produce on an average 5s. a week to each man.”

Yet though a beneficent and paternal department gave sanction to the indirect taxation of the public to bring up the wages of the letter-carriers, the letter-carriers themselves still found cause for complaint. On March 1, 1866, a small meeting was held in a public hall to decide on the best means of letting the public and the authorities know of the chronic discontent prevailing, and the adoption of the most effectual means of agitating for the purpose of obtaining a higher wage. The prime mover of this was a letter-carrier named Padfield, in receipt of twenty-five shillings a week, and his principal coadjutors were Sinfield and Booth. Some strong comments were made regarding the decisions of the Postmaster-General and upon the replies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons, which utterances, as reported, were objected to by the authorities as exceeding the bounds of official license. Padfield, who called the meeting and filled the chair on this occasion, had been an active agitator for some years, and the fact was remembered to his detriment when this particular meeting was taken into account. The Postmaster-General thought it would be against the interests of discipline to retain such a man in the service, and directed that he be dismissed, in the hope that this single example would serve as a sufficient warning to the others. Padfield was accordingly dismissed in the thirteenth year of his service, his defence that he merely took the chair to enable the meeting to express an opinion, which he in no way directed, being of no avail. The two minor sinners, Booth and Sinfield, were dealt with more leniently, and escaped with a severe admonition and a warning as to their future conduct. Booth, however, was to reappear as a more important character later on.

It was this meeting called by Padfield which induced the Postmaster-General, Lord Stanley, to put down with a strong hand these public expressions of discontent among postal servants. He had already expressed disapprobation of such meetings, and could no longer think that there remained any grievances unredressed.

On March 13, 1866, Lord Stanley issued a minute dealing with the practice of holding meetings in public, and the privilege was withdrawn. The decision come to by Lord Stanley was that he was “determined no longer to tolerate a system of agitation which is got up by a few turbulent men, and which tends to create a spirit of discontent and restlessness among the whole of the lower body of the Post-Office servants. With this view he forbids, on pain of dismissal, the holding by officers of the department of any meeting beyond the walls of the Post-Office building for the discussion of official questions.”

The department by this time had whetted its appetite for economy; it had at last wholly committed itself to a policy of save-at-any-price. Had not the great oracle of reform, Rowland Hill himself, shown the way? It was easy to effect this by reducing postal servants’ pay in proportion as their work became harder, and their responsibilities increased. It was also easy of accomplishment by compelling those employed and paid for performing inferior duties to take up those of their immediate superiors who had been in receipt of nearly double their wages. Not that this was altogether a new shuffle in the game of economy, but it had never been so effectively applied. The stampers, therefore, who were regarded as an inferior grade of letter-sorters, were forthwith made to take up despatching duties, those same duties practically for which only a few years before clerks at £200, £300, and even £400 a year had been almost exclusively employed. Thus was the dignity and responsibility of postal duties depreciated still further; thus were the men given fresh causes for complaint; and thus were the seeds of future agitation further sown. The stampers resented it in the only way possible, by petition, verbal and written, and by every means of respectful protest that remained to them. The department had not yet even learnt how to be diplomatic—it practically left them without an answer; not even one of those characteristic replies which have so often protracted the struggle, by referring it to their successors for interpretation. They thought that appealing to the men’s vanity would remove their discontent; that by giving them a new designation they would feel they were not so hardly worked after all. They thought that by calling a man something else he would consent to regard himself as less of a white slave than he was in reality. They very magnanimously altered his official description from that of a stamper to sub-sorter, but without the smallest difference in point of pay or prospects in return for the newly-fixed responsibilities. The malcontents were still ungrateful enough to remain unconverted to the department’s point of view. They did not mind being called anything that would befit them; a rose by any name would smell as sweet; but if they had to do more work of a higher responsibility, they wanted correspondingly better pay. If anything, the discontented ones were even more sordid in those days than those who followed later.

The department had yet a deal to learn, but it played the game with a sublime indifference to the rules of fairness, and wondered when it was detected cheating. It had not yet learned how to cheat with grace, and by means of forced cards, without the subterfuge being exposed on the instant. That was to come later. They had been so used to submissiveness on the part of the force that they could not think the men would have the courage to persist in their objections now. So they thought to compromise the difference by giving the men yet another title, that of “assistant-sorter,” and putting them on the sorters’ scale, but with a reduced maximum when they should reach the top. Now the only advantage they could afford the men as a solatium in their disappointment was to offer them a maximum more easily attained to by being reduced by five shillings. This was the result of a “revision” made in September 1867. The highest wage a man could now receive was 45s. a week instead of 50s., and the only compensation offered for his deprivation of prospect was an increase of 6d. in the yearly rise, and a very slight increase on the lower scale. So that instead of taking nearly half a lifetime to reach 50s. by twenty-seven yearly instalments, it now took sixteen years to reach 45s.

Then after a while they were given the option of remaining on the 50s. maximum at 1s. increments, or the 45s. at 1s. 6d. annual increments. In either case it was like the promise of a copyhold in the moon; at least so the men regarded it, especially as the immediate outlay to the department meant only a dozen shillings or so. But they were compelled to accept the conditions and to take up the duties none the less.

Even with an unblemished character, it took perhaps half a lifetime to reach a respectable salary. Consequently many—the stampers, sub-sorters, postmen, and others—had to eke out their meagre income by working at an alternative trade, such as bootmaking, watchmaking, or other odd jobs in the intervals which should ordinarily have been given to sleep and leisure. One man who used to engage in “moving jobs,” he having a little greengrocers business, was constantly late for the afternoon duty. When called on to explain, he gave as his reason that the Post-Office gave him his bread, and he had to employ his spare time elsewhere looking for his cheese. It is a trifling incident, but the reply would have equally well fitted hundreds of others in similar positions.

As has already been pointed out, the bond of relationship between the letter-carrier and the stampers and sorters was becoming a most intimate one, and one body scarcely moved without the other. The letter-carriers complained of poor pay in proportion to the value of their work, and bad treatment generally. The stampers and the sorters had their own distinct grievances, but there was to an extent a common ground of action between them. They had as yet no right of public meeting; indeed that right, conceded as such, did not come till twenty-five years after, when it was granted expressly by Mr. Gladstone. There appeared to be a total absence of instruction on the matter, but it was generally taken for granted that postal servants who were debarred the simple privilege of recording their votes at election times, except under most dreadful pains and penalties, most certainly would not be allowed to convene meetings or to hire halls for purposes of agitation. It had always been thought that postal officials courted official outlawry by attempting to do so. The withholding of the franchise from them encouraged the belief, even among themselves, that they were not fit and proper persons to engage in anything but their own business, which was that of serving the State and the public as faithfully as they knew how on their scanty pay. Yet it was not till 1866 that there was any direct official pronouncement on the matter, and it is probable that nothing but the events happening previously provided the warranty for it.

The greater portion of the Civil Service at this period were up in arms to claim their right to the franchise, and the Post-Office, as represented by the clerical staff, particularly played its part. The Post-Office clerks took the lead, and joined with the rest of civil servants in the general demand to be treated as loyal and intelligent citizens. Many meetings were held, at which M.P.’s and influential speakers attended. Postal servants of the lower grades gave sympathetic support, but it must be confessed that they were as a body less impressed with the importance of the principle than were their superiors in the service. With them it was more a question of more bread and butter than votes; and only a proportion of the more discerning saw how the exercise of the franchise would directly affect them and their position.

On the whole, the credit for agitating for the franchise for postal servants must be given to the clerical staff of that period. It is not, however, to be supposed that they were animated by any democratic desire to extend political privileges to such people as letter-carriers and letter-sorters. They, as was only natural in the circumstances, played principally for their own hand; but they helped to win the game, and the thanks of those who afterwards shared in the spoils were due to them.

And here it is perhaps allowable to point out as a noteworthy fact that it was the clerks of the Civil Service themselves who originally were responsible for the withholding of the franchise from all Government servants. They it was who relinquished their birthright, and were the indirect means of depriving future generations of it. This happened so far back as 1782, and it was actually done at their own request and petition. Nor was there anything particularly reprehensible or blameworthy in their taking up such a position, as it was done entirely for their own protection. The possession of a vote in those days had proved more of a curse than a blessing; and an election period meant a time of coercion and anxiety about the security of their position under Government. In an election they could not please both parties, and their votes being solicited by rival factions, woe to them if they did not vote on the lucky side. At this time the existing Government, through the votes of public servants, controlled no less than seventy seats in the House of Commons. Just before a General Election, Lord North, who had been in power for twelve years, took a high hand by sending notices to those constituencies where the votes of Government servants were likely to turn the scale, that unless they voted for his party, it would go very hard with them in the event of his being returned to power. This was a threat and a warning serious enough in itself, but it was rendered more so by the opposite party retaliating in a like fashion by also sending out notices to the effect that there was a likelihood of their coming into office, and that if they did not give their vote, such Government servants would find themselves in a very awkward predicament.

A strong petition was sent up pleading for disfranchisement, and a bill was introduced shortly after the formation of Lord Rockingham’s administration, which was to deliver ministers from temptation to tamper with civil servants, and the better to secure the freedom of election. It is a somewhat surprising fact, looked at in these days, that this bill was warmly contested in all its stages through the House of Commons. But it was eventually passed by considerable majorities, though in no division were more than 110 members present. At that time it was regarded as a very necessary precaution to have passed this Act (22 Geo. III. c. 41), as it was computed that the Revenue officers formed nearly twenty per cent. of the whole electorate. While the Government of the day wielded such power over the destinies of civil servants because of the possession of these votes, and that in point of fact they could by this means influence no less than 140 votes in the House of Commons, it was perhaps far better that civil servants should be disfranchised. But the natural consequence was that all Post-Office servants, whatever their rank, high or low, were excluded from the use of their votes; and this in course of time gave rise to a very grave injustice.

While citizen liberty was everywhere expanding, and the greater majority of the artisan and labouring classes were being gathered into the widening folds of the British electorate, those who happened to serve the Crown in any capacity had to pay for the privilege by the sacrifice of their vote. From allowing too much liberty to Revenue officers and those serving under the Crown, the Government rushed to the other extreme, and an Act was passed in the pre-Reform days (7 & 8 Geo. III. c. 53, s. 9) by which the provisions of former Acts were amended and extended still further by increasing the penalty to be inflicted on any Revenue officer (including postal officials) for voting at election times while still in his Majesty’s service, and for two months subsequent to leaving it. The penalty was increased from £100 to £500. An officer in the Post-Office was not merely liable to this heavy penalty for recording his vote, which in the ordinary course was allowed him as a citizen by the law, but on conviction was declared to be for ever disabled and incapable of holding or executing any office of trust under the Crown, if he committed the heinous crime of voting at Parliamentary elections. The great Reform Act of 1831, which came to be hailed with such joyous satisfaction by the whole community, afforded no relief to the Post-Office official, and it was not till a quarter of a century later that they were thought worthy of being entrusted with a vote. However this deprival of the franchise may have been justified in Lord Rockingham’s time in 1782, times and circumstances had materially changed when the middle of the nineteenth century arrived.

Such was the paradoxical position taken up with regard to postal servants and all those who served the Revenue, that while they were invariably men of selected character and selected intelligence and education, generally introduced into the public service through the highest influence to vouch for their integrity, they were not thought trustworthy enough to use a vote with common honesty and discretion. The absurdity and injustice of the position could not fail to arouse in course of time the opposition of those affected. In those days the future brilliant critic and fighting editor of the World, Edmund Yates, and Anthony Trollope, the future novelist, were in the Post-Office; and these, in co-operation with Messrs. Frank Ives Scudamore, Chetwynd, and Ashurst, threw themselves into a movement for the removal of such electoral disabilities. The Inland Revenue was represented by Messrs. Dalbiac, Jacobs, and Alaric A. Watts, and the Customs by Messrs. Dobell and Hamel. These, the representatives of the Post-Office, the Inland Revenue, and the Customs, resolved themselves into a committee. A circular was issued to the members of the service, and the support of members of Parliament was obtained, and among these were included Mr. Charles Buxton, Sir Harry Verney, and Mr. Charles J. Monk. The discontent with the existing political restraint placed upon them in a short time pervaded all ranks and sections of the Civil Service; and, feeling that the retention of the present disabilities was a slur on their intelligence, and a stigma on their character for loyalty, the agitation for their removal was entered into with earnestness. This was the first organised attempt to obtain the removal of the disabilities in respect of voting and taking part in Parliamentary elections, which invidiously differentiated all Revenue officers from all other civil servants of the Crown. But it was to prove nearly a nine years’ hard fight before they were to take back what had been so hastily thrown away by a previous generation of civil servants. Beyond a few private members no minister could be induced to give countenance to what had almost come to be regarded as an impossible demand.

When the Reform Bill of 1867 was passing through the House of Commons, Sir Harry Verney, who had warmly espoused the cause of the disenfranchised civil servants, proposed a clause enabling Revenue officials (who were otherwise qualified) to vote at elections, but, on the recommendations of both Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, this clause was negatived without a division. Yet this part of the proposal, at any rate, vehemently opposed though it was by the Government of the day and the leaders of the Opposition, was to be within two years embodied in a statute of the realm. Each forward step taken by the friends of enfranchisement was contested by the occupants of both sides of the House; and every argument that could be devised for and against was imported into the discussion.

It was due to Mr. Charles J. Monk, the member for Gloucester, that the first breach in the Opposition was made. From the very first he had been struck with the unfairness of excluding educated and selected men in the Post-Office, Customs, and Inland Revenue from the exercise of the franchise, while their brethren in all the other departments of the State could freely vote and take part in elections. The principal high official argument, used in its many variations, was that it would be an unsafe weapon to place in the hands of men who might use it for furthering excessive demands, and for general purposes of agitation. Mr. Monk’s reply was in most cases to the effect that “if these officers have just cause of complaint it is far better that the grievance should be brought before the House by their Parliamentary representatives than that it should be left to seethe below the surface, or be brought to light through irregular channels.” It was early in the session of 1868 that Mr. Monk introduced his Revenue Officers’ Disabilities Removal Bill. Slowly and inch by inch it was carried through all its stages in the House of Commons, defeating the Tory Government of Mr. Disraeli, on the motion for going into committee on the bill, by a majority of thirty-two. This was certainly a triumph for the friends of Reform, considering that the Government had the support of the Leader of the Opposition in opposing the measure. Lord Abinger took charge of the bill in the House of Lords, when the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cairns, much to the astonishment of the peers themselves and many others in the Lower House, supported the measure most strongly. This was sufficient to ensure its success, and it speedily passed into law (31 & 32 Vict. c. 73).

During the subsequent Parliament, 1868–1874, Mr. Monk made several attempts to complete the measure of enfranchisement by enabling officers engaged in the collection and management of her Majesty’s revenues to take part unreservedly in the election of members to serve in Parliament. But he was invariably opposed most strenuously by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, and it was not till another Parliament had been elected, in 1874, that he was enabled to accomplish that object by passing one other measure (37 & 38 Vict c. 22) through Parliament, with the concurrence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the new Government, Sir Stafford Northcote.

The services of Mr. Monk in getting passed the measure of 1868 were still appreciated by the newly-emancipated postal servants and others; and Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore, Assistant-Secretary to the Post-Office, on behalf of the Revenue Offices generally, presented him with an illuminated address, expressive of their gratitude to him for his skill and ability in carrying their “Bill of Rights” successfully through Parliament, “in despite of formidable opposition.”

If it was the higher grade of civil servants who for their own protection threw away their right to the franchise, it was the same class who recovered it, and who were instrumental in procuring it even for their humbler subordinates in the postal service and elsewhere.

During the progress of the agitation among nearly all Civil Service bodies to obtain the franchise, discontent was becoming all the more acute in the Post-Office. Doubtless the contemplation of practically the whole Civil Service engaged in furthering a united demand, in no small degree gave an impetus to the growing postal movement, and helped to develop the forces of discontent within.