Читать книгу A history of postal agitation from fifty years ago till the present day - H. G. Swift - Страница 8

ECONOMICAL REFORM AND A LOWERING OF STATUS—AN ESTIMATE OF ROWLAND HILL—EFFORTS OF THE CIVIL SERVICE GAZETTE—THE CONDITIONS OF THE SERVICE, 1854–60.

From about 1854 it seems a new class of men were gradually being introduced. By the operation of what was known as the Elcho Scheme, there was a large reduction of the clerical class who had hitherto usually discharged the duties of letter-sorting, as well as the despatch and receipt of mails. But the authorities, beginning to awaken to the fact that the Post-Office was becoming a splendid source of revenue, therefore decided to cut down expenditure by introducing a more poorly paid class to take up the duties of those who had been in receipt of a much higher salary than it was proposed to offer the new entrants.

The work of sorting letters, for example, which had hitherto been performed by clerks, was now to be entrusted to men of an inferior grade. And the “Report upon the Post-Office for the year 1854,” in which this innovation is first announced, expresses the hope that such persons on an inferior salary would be able, as necessity arose, or on “occasions of any extraordinary pressure,” to take a share also in the duties of the clerks. This is perhaps one of the earliest indications of that policy of cheese-paring and depreciation of the value of official work, which, if it has not always justified discontent and agitation, has proved a fruitful source of it. From the introduction of the penny post, and probably from a long time before, the public correspondence was treated tenderly and disposed of conscientiously. So high was the importance attached to it that none were deemed worthy of being entrusted with it who were not servants belonging to the “major establishment.” Both the sorters of letters and those who despatched the mails belonged to the clerical staff, while only the work of “facing,” stamping, tying, and the work of conveyance and porterage was entrusted to the class of minor officials, who afterwards came to constitute the main bulk of the force.

From this period the clerks, who had been the only ones entrusted with the high responsibility of sorting and despatching letters, gradually became a restricted and exclusive class, while the lesser officials, who formerly had been scarcely allowed to touch the correspondence, were now trained to those superior duties, but without a corresponding increase of remuneration. It is worthy, however, of bearing in mind that the despatching of mails was still deemed of such a responsibility and importance that mere letter-sorters were not yet allowed to perform such duties, clerks only on a salary rising to £400 a year being thought worthy of that honour, although a few years later, when such duties became several times heavier and correspondingly more responsible, the inferior class of letter-sorters were compelled to take them up. It was the continuance of this anomaly for some length of time, indeed, which constituted one of the main elements of discontent, and came to be regarded as a distinct grievance among the letter-sorting staff especially.

As the growth of the Post-Office business necessitated a larger staff to cope with it, so a new class of men were being slowly introduced. The penny post was a reform so much appreciated by the public by this time that it had become even now, in 1854, the most flourishing business in the world. And Rowland Hill was not slow to take every advantage of his discovery that the Post-Office contained greater possibilities than to remain a cheap public convenience. The founder of the penny post was now Permanent Secretary, and a greater power in the land than the Postmaster-General, not a little of a bureaucrat, and one who had trained himself to regard his postal domain as a sort of family preserve. He saw no harm in introducing cheap labour; he discovered a new way of cutting down expenses by relegating the work which had been paid for at a salary of from £200 to £400 a year to this new class of minor officials, mostly salaried at less than a fourth that amount. There was one new element introduced with the new-comers, however, which probably was never taken into account at the time; and that was, that they were drawn from a better educated, and a more enlightened body of men than those hitherto engaged on inferior duties. The educational tests for admission into the Post-Office had previously been very meagre, and almost nil where special influence had been used. The old system of patronage and nomination was maintained as long as it was convenient, and as long as it worked satisfactorily, and for some considerable time longer. But at length, owing to the expansion of postal business, even patronage could not of itself keep up an adequate supply of qualified recruits. And it was impossible to go begging to lords or distinguished commoners for poor relations, or cast-off dependants, as that might be putting a premium on dishonesty, and cheapening still further good recommendations which were already in some cases too cheap to be genuine. Besides, the growth of democratic ideas among people outside was making them inquisitive. There was the beginning of a feeling that nomination by aristocratic influence was not of itself recommendation enough for a government post, however humble; though, perhaps, this was shared most largely among those ever ready to make a mark of public departments, and by those who had failed themselves to invoke such influence, or who envied those who had succeeded. Again, the claims of education had never been sufficiently recognised in filling these subordinate positions, and now was the opportunity to get a better value for money. Accordingly by slow degrees the old system of nomination by influence alone became more honoured in the breach than in the observance. At least it came to be not insisted on as the highest qualification—which was certainly a step in the right direction. Instead, a suitable educational test, coupled with ordinary certificates as to character, was the principal introduction required.

Patronage was still allowed to exercise its influence where it desired, and continued to do so for many years afterwards, but it was no longer held to be the only “open, sesame” to a berth in the Post-Office. And so there were drawn from almost every rank in life, men of a better educational standard; men who knew the world better, and men who in many instances fostered a feeling of independence, more or less, by having some knowledge of a trade, or the experiences gained in a former occupation. In any case they were not drawn from any particular class. They were not all the sons or relatives of sworn retainers—of humble and obedient family servants grown grey in bowing and scraping to superiors—nor from a stock always warranted by such circumstance to remain quiet in harness. Doubtless some still were; but the majority were not. If, on entering the Post-Office, they had to share the lot of all postal officials in those days of being deprived of the franchise, they were as free as, or freer than, their predecessors, to influence members of Parliament secretly and indirectly through their relatives or friends who had votes to give, or may-be to sell. Though there is no reason to think that any number of them at that time attached any very serious importance to the loss of civil liberty in this respect which entry into the public service entailed; still, members of Parliament, and intending Parliamentary candidates having influence in high quarters, could not altogether refuse their good offices on behalf of a letter-carrier, or a sorter, whose case, or whose individual claims, might be represented by a friend who was a constituent suffering no such electoral disability. One postal employé might influence half-a-dozen votes in a constituency.

At first this new departure in economy had been attempted very gingerly, only about twenty selected men of the minor establishment being introduced into the sorting department for this purpose. The class from which they were drawn comprised the letter-carriers, messengers, doorkeepers, &c., who were originally intended to remain in those inferior positions as long as their service lasted. These twenty men were accordingly brought into the Inland Letter Branch, where for a time they were exclusively employed in the first stages of those duties for which their superiors, the clerks, had been drawing three times the highest salary they could ever hope to obtain. This work of primary sortation, dividing and subdividing the correspondence at the general sorting and divisional tables, necessitated no great intellectual strain, and required no educational ability beyond that of reading the addresses on the envelopes. But, as will be seen, the “experiment” was bad in principle, inasmuch as whatever the inducements, whatever the promises, the new sorting staff got no improvement in pay or prospects. It was a too flagrant and sudden depreciation of the standard of work hitherto regarded as of such exclusive importance that none but clerks rising to substantial salaries had been thought capable enough or trustworthy enough to deal with it. The experiment, for the best of reasons, was pronounced satisfactory, and then after a while new responsibilities were heaped upon these twenty expectant scapegoats, whose expectation proved to be their only comfort. They were eventually put to “despatching” and other highly responsible duties as these were vacated by the clerks; others, letter-carriers, &c., being brought in to perform the primary sortation. And so this system of replacement continued year after year until eventually the whole of the Inland Letter-sorting Office was manned by minor establishment men. This was a piece of official cozening that was complete in its success. That from £200 to £400 may have been too big a salary to pay for such work in those days especially may be readily granted; but it certainly might have been expected that some improvement in position corresponding to their new duties and heavier responsibilities would have been granted the new class of sorters. As it was, they were left to remain on their old status as letter-carriers and messengers. In the face of this—that Rowland Hill and the authorities had found out a new way to get the public’s correspondence dealt with at somewhere about one-third the original in salaries—it seems difficult of belief that absolutely nothing was done for this badly-treated class of men until fully twenty-five years later. Yet such is the fact. It was not that the men felt they had no cause for complaint; it was not because they did not realise that they were a cheated and disgracefully-sweated body of men. Many indeed left the Post-Office in disgust after remaining only a few months. But whatever discontent may have shown itself, and however justified, there were none in Parliament yet who could be induced to take up their cause as a body. Doubtless individual representations were made by the score, but while they may have been pretty well agreed by this time that they were being duped more or less, there was still a lack of unity among them. Besides, they were a small and obscure body about which the general public knew next to nothing and cared less; they were as yet without any means of making known their plaint even if they so desired. They were without influence as without votes. They were not only without influence and without votes, but those who by circumstances were compelled to tolerate the conditions of their service felt that the rigorous rule against communicating with the press or approaching M.P.’s directly was looked upon as having all the sanctity of law by those outside. Even the organs of the public press were not to be trusted, it was felt; while to communicate directly and privately with any M.P. would have been not only useless but dangerous. They could have taken a ready revenge for being pestered by men with grievances but no votes. Consequently there was never, till a few years later, discontent open enough or of such a nature to draw public attention.

At this period the London letter-carriers were principally confined to the chief office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and as the grades of stampers and sorters were mainly drawn from this body, and as both were located in the same huge building, the relationship between them was of a close connection. Whatever grievances were felt by one class were felt or sympathised with by the other. If there was no movement among them answering to combination as it came to be understood a little later; if they did not set their faces in one particular direction by common impulse; if they as yet had no thought of gathering in public meeting and attempting to break the silence imposed on them by official restraints, it was not because they were not agreed that they were an ill-used body of men. The awakening was beginning; the signs of discontent were scarcely concealed, but the authorities saw no reason to inquire further.

Already the most daring among them directed their eyes to Exeter Hall, and some talked of the possibility of a public demonstration. As was very natural, the majority hesitated about taking a step which had scarcely before been attempted. It was like exploring an unknown country, and they could only guess at the difficulties and dangers ahead. No one was certain, either, how the public would receive any demonstration of aggrieved postal servants. It might be regarded as an exhibition of downright disloyalty by those without, and as rank mutiny by the authorities within. It might even be looked on by the public at large as the beginnings of a postal strike; while it was feared that the press would prove anything but friendly. If it did not hold their puny efforts up to scorn and ridicule, it might hamper them in no small degree, and alienate any little sympathy they might be able to command among a few influential public men who had quietly promised to assist them to get the matter looked into. It was such considerations as these that caused the proposal to hang fire for a period.

About 1855, however, the discontent among the London letter-carriers began to express itself in something like organised effort. A committee was formed, and small subscriptions were collected to defray the expenses of hiring a hall in which to hold public meetings. The principal ground of complaint was, as usual, the smallness of salary as compared with the high price of provisions and increasing house-rent, and the withdrawal of payment for extra duty. It appears that while the men had been allowed the opportunity of adding to their slender wage by making sixpence an hour for overtime, they bore with the conditions of the service uncomplainingly. But they very justly regarded the withdrawal of this payment for extra duty as incompatible with the increased pressure of work imposed upon them. The meanness which few private employers would care to be found guilty of was unblushingly practised by a State monopoly upon its poorest and most defenceless menials even at this early period. But the letter-carriers were not without spirit, and not without spokesmen to protest on their behalf. On the 13th January 1856, a meeting of letter-carriers was for the first time convened to ventilate their grievances and prepare the terms of a memorial to the Postmaster-General. The memorial was accordingly drawn up, but the memorialists—which principally consisted of the fourth or lowest class of letter-carriers, and therefore the poorest paid—committed the fatal mistake of allowing its publication in the press before presentation to the head of the department. This fact was seized upon by the then Postmaster-General, the Duke of Argyll, as in itself sufficient ground for refusing their claims, and it was intimated to them that the step was so improper in the circumstances that even had the memorial been found reasonable in itself his Grace would have found it difficult to take it into favourable consideration. In the second annual report of the Postmaster-General the “misconduct” of the agitators was severely animadverted on, but his Grace in conclusion expressed his willingness to make allowance for “misconduct arising out of excited feeling,” and desired to take as lenient a course as was consistent with due regard to the discipline of the office. He therefore satisfied himself with reminding those who had shared in these “objectionable proceedings” that henceforth no annual increment would be granted without a certificate of continued good character from their superiors.

Having regard to the circumstances and the times, perhaps they had some cause for congratulation that their offence had been passed over so lightly. Certainly it must be said that the Postmaster-General of 1856 showed an example in lenity which a successor of twenty years after would have done well to copy, and which would have shown him in more consistent accord with the growing and expanding spirit of reform.

Undoubtedly there was ample justification for the discontent which centred in the recent memorial from the letter-carriers. The conditions of the service for them and the lower ranks of postal operatives especially were perhaps not what they should have been, a recent slight improvement notwithstanding. But they were better off than they were to be a year or two later. Things were bad in the Post-Office; but if the plain truth be told, probably the position of the letter-carriers rather favourably compared with the lot of those outside, whose occupation and calling bore the nearest analogy to theirs. For, though the department had committed itself to a policy of rigid economy and profit-making, and had definitely assumed a position of subserviency to the Treasury, it had not yet fully entered on that of cheese-paring parsimony at the expense of its humblest workers which was later on to so characterise it the more as it became wealthier and mightier in its operations and its ambitions. Certainly, it had assumed to think its servants well paid on a starvation pittance, but presumably it still felt some little compunction for their bodily comfort. And this was something in those days when labour had few rights and no privileges. With a curious inconsistency, while it kept the letter-carriers on a wage too low to enable them to live decently, and deprived them of a means to add a shilling or two to their incomes, it actually expressed a philanthropic concern about the manner their poor pay and prospects compelled them to house themselves. The dwellings of the letter-carriers for some time became the object of the authorities’ benevolent attention; apparently on the assumption that a slave-owner may consistently pose as a good, kind master, it at least pretended to take a paternal interest in the domestic welfare of these humble public servants still complaining of too little pay. It was suggested that some sort of postal barracks for letter-carriers and their families should be erected near to the General Post-Office. It was thought that they would enjoy a greater immunity from sickness, but more especially would it be convenient to the department to have them within easy reach, so that they might summon them by bugle-call, and shepherd them in one big drove whenever big mails arrived from abroad. Doubtless, also, it entered into the calculations of the authors of this proposed pretty little postal commonwealth, that they would be better able to keep an eye on the morals of their employés, and preserve their good characters. The authorities, however, shrunk from the responsibility of erecting and maintaining such barracks at the cost of the Government. They did not trust their pet scheme so far as that. The Duke of Argyll, whose original idea it was, thought the prospect one more suitable for a public company, but it was stated in his report that the department might afford aid by “securing to the company its rents, deducting the same from the wages” of the letter-carriers. The Postmaster-General of the period may have been animated by the best of motives; but it is observable that no part of the cost was to be borne by the department, nor were the men, already poorly paid, to be assisted in paying for the extra convenience to the department. The report of the medical officer on the matter discloses the conditions which the low wage of the letter-carriers compelled them to live under. A perusal of this report alone, it seems, provides sufficient excuse for the letter-carriers’ claim to better pay as servants of the State. And the Duke of Argyll, by the publication of the disgraceful facts, provided an unanswerable indictment against his own judgment. It has to be remembered that these were the days before workmen’s trains, when the neighbourhoods around the city were almost as congested as at present, and several times more squalid. The medical officer’s report showed that the great demand for house-room, and the convenience of living near their work obliged these men to live in single apartments, for the most part low, imperfectly ventilated, and “in many cases totally unfit for habitation.” “In some of them the officers who have lodged there have taken smallpox, scarlet fever, and similar contagious complaints. … All the cases of smallpox and fever that have come before me during the last six months have occurred to officers living in such tenements.”

And yet the public servants compelled to live amidst such surroundings were reprimanded for their “misconduct” and “objectionable proceedings” in daring to ask for that slight increase of pay which would enable them to improve the very conditions which his Grace of Argyll so deplored. The Postmaster-General’s dream of a contented little postal Utopia nestling under the shadow of St. Martin’s-le-Grand was, as a matter of course, never attempted to be realised; nor was the slightest compensating advantage given to the neglected men. Yet it must however be stated, to the credit of the authorities of those days, that though they refused any improvement in pay or prospects, they offered the men good investment for their money in the way of an insurance scheme for their benefit. If they could not better provide for their employés while living, they made amends to them when dead. The Post-Office was willing to provide a decent funeral cheaply for any of its servants whom death from ill-nutrition and overwork had saved from becoming State pensioners. It was a happy stroke and a bold one in the direction of economy, and a clever experiment in State Socialism, for which the Duke of Argyll was to be eminently commended.

Still, when all is said, and when all allowance is made for the times, the Post-Office as an employer was no worse than many a factory and many another huge workshop. It was certainly no worse than it was itself destined to become on the departure of the dukely pseudo-philanthropist from St. Martin’s-le-Grand. If there was one thing in postal administration during this time which called for praise it was the earnest solicitude after the health of the staff. The earlier reports from the medical officers of the Post-Office are examples of completeness, and display a patience, a research, and a suggestiveness, as well as a desire to improve the sanitary conditions and working environments of the staff, which is all the more creditable, seeing that the Post-Office then employed only a tithe of the vast army which to-day crowd and toil within its walls.

Yet, painstaking and conscientious as these annual reports on the health of the staff continued to be for the first few years of their appearance, they were by virtue of their very quality calculated to mislead the public as to the inner conditions of Post-Office life. For one thing they referred principally, if not wholly, to the staffs of London; occasionally Edinburgh and Dublin and other large centres came in for observation, but generally speaking too little attention was paid to the conditions of the provincial offices and other places. Extensively quoted and commented on as all such reports were likely to be, they helped, despite the good intentions of their authors, to convey a lasting impression that the Post-Office was the best-managed and best-regulated department of the State, second only to the army in point of immunity from liability to disease in sanitation and general healthful surroundings. They conveyed the idea that the authorities were on the whole so solicitous about the health and comfort of their lesser subordinates that they would temper the wind to the shorn lamb, and were only too eager to stand between a postman and a draught even while they resolutely refused him proper boots and a winter overcoat. They conveyed the notion that while it was good for his moral welfare to underpay him and put temptation in his way, they none the less themselves endured sympathy pains each time an epidemic of diarrhœa swept through the office. They might be found guilty of many things, but it could never be urged against them that they neglected to regulate the number of microbes in the drinking-water. Altogether such regard apparently was paid to the health of the postal staff in these earlier reports that they gave a suggestion of an abiding humanitarianism in postal administration which should cause postal officials generally to regard themselves as fortunate indeed. Only the timidly-uttered discontent among the letter-carriers gave indication of that newly-imported spirit of profit-mongering commercialism which in a few years was to debauch that leavening principle almost beyond recognition. Not that there was any conscious hypocrisy as yet in officialdom. Through all the changes that ensued, the authorities acted according to their conception of their moral duty. For, up to the present, no responsible minister had risen to accuse the Government of being the model employer.

Rowland Hill, the Permanent Secretary, who by this time had become petted and praised and honoured as the greatest reformer of his or any other age, was nevertheless beginning to be found out by his humbler subordinates. Among them at least the “Monarch of the Penny Post” was anything but a living embodiment of all human virtues. These, the little army of obscure minions about the footstool of his gilded throne, had found out that the idol had feet of clay. While the crowd worshipped without, the menial servants within the temple dedicated to his fame could not seal their eyes to his imperfections. They were the menials on whose humble shoulders was borne the weight of that throne and footstool on which he rested; and they most of all knew that their worshipful master’s clay foot was one that could crush most mercilessly. Such was the feeling under the surface, while the great postal reformer himself never dreamed that those so low down would dare to question either his wisdom or his benevolence in finding employment for such a class of men as they. If he ever dreamed that menials could prove so ungrateful for his inventing the penny post, which gave them their livelihood whatever the conditions, it is probable he did not care. Had he been curious to find out, like another Al Raschid, how his servants regarded him, he would have found it somewhat difficult. But suddenly one day, in the summer of 1858, there was circulated broadcast among the members of the London postal service a stinging piece of satire in verse, which purported to represent the esteem in which he was held by the rank and file of the working staff. There is not the slightest doubt that means were taken to ensure his getting a copy, even if his own cherished penny post were used as the medium. If Rowland Hill ever saw it, history is silent as to how he took it. Possibly he only smiled contemptuously; certainly he was not the man to wince, because the sting of an insect had found a loose joint in his armour. Needless to say the author never came forward to claim his laurels, nor was his anonymity discovered. The verse, which was printed on a small handbill, convenient for secret distribution, is almost a literary curiosity now after nearly fifty years. It read as follows:—

THE WHITE SLAVES

To the Magnate of St. Martin’s-le-Grand

The author presents his compliments to Mr. Rowland Hill, and begs his acceptance of the accompanying lines as a mark of the respect in which he is held by a numerous and hard-working class of which the writer is one, as

A Post-Office Fag, Versus White Nigger.

O Rowland Hill! O Rowland Hill!

Thou man of proud imperious will!

Forbear to crush, with iron hand,

The drudges under thy command;

And strive to purify thy fame

From stains that now defile thy name.

Hast thou all sense of justice lost,

Great Monarch of the Penny Post?

Thou takest care, O Rowland Hill!

Thy own big-bellied purse to fill;

But woe betide the hapless wight,

If thou canst nibble at his mite.

Is not thy service rather dear,

At fifteen hundred pounds a year?

Thy brother, with a thousand too,

Methinks is pretty well to do:

And then thy Son, that hopeful sprig,

Five hundred hath to laugh and jig.

So thou hast feathered well thy nest,

And now canst giggle with the best.

But sometimes, Rowland! cast a thought,

On those by labour overwrought;

Nor crimp them of their scanty pay,

That thou mayst revel with the gay;

Invoke their blessing, not their curse,

And thou wouldst never fare the worse.

There is reason to believe that the lines were produced by the printers of the Civil Service Gazette. The lines gave an immense amount of secret satisfaction among the class of men to whom the poet was supposed to belong. But better was in store. Following almost immediately on the publication of the verse, the Civil Service Gazette announced its early intention to ventilate the grievances of the “Fags” and “White Niggers” of the postal service. Great was the jubilation among the aggrieved men, for each confidently expected to borrow a copy from his neighbour when it came out. The Civil Service Gazette was a luxury few could afford ordinarily in those days, costing as it did fivepence, principally owing to the paper duty not being yet repealed.

It was the very first time that any public organ had shown the courage and independence to take up in this manner the little-known case of the sorters and letter-carriers. They were naturally delighted, and devoured the articles with avidity. Now that their grievances had at last found ventilation in all the glory of print, surely the day of their deliverance was close at hand.

But the articles fell short of the mark. They were forcible and telling enough—as all such articles of the Civil Service Gazette in those days were—and they showed no small justification for the discontent prevailing. Yet they convinced nobody but the aggrieved men themselves; the authorities were scarcely impressed, except with the impudence of it, while they were read with only a qualified sympathy by the other members of the Civil Service who chanced to take them up. The only effect the publication of the articles had on the heads of the department against whom they were more or less directed was to provoke an inquiry into the authorship of what they chose to regard as a gross literary impertinence. The usual voluntary spies and amateur detectives were set to work secretly to discover by their own methods who could have been guilty of communicating the facts, or, better still, who was the actual author, and if he had any connection with the service. If the men knew anything at all, they kept the secret loyally. The authorities never got beyond suspicions which they failed to justify, and so the matter blew over. If ever there was a postal Junius in connection with the case, none but a few and the Civil Service Gazette knew his identity.

Before leaving the matter of these articles, of which such high hopes and expectations were raised, it may be worthy of mention as a curious item that the interest and enthusiasm of the men was for some time before kept alive by the surreptitious distribution inside the office and elsewhere of handbills issued from the publishers. Let the handbill speak for itself, and break the silence of nearly half a century:—

Read the “Civil Service Gazette”

Unstamped 5d.—Stamped 6d.

July 24th, 1858,

ROWLAND HILL’S LAST UKASE!

BREAK DOWN OF THE GAGGING SYSTEM!

WHITE SLAVES OF THE POST-OFFICE.

31st,

ROWLAND HILL’S JOB FRUSTRATED:

HIS GREAT REVENGE:

The Screw and Gagging System of the General Post-Office.

POST-OFFICE REFORMS

AND THE WAY TO GET THEM:

HOPE FOR THE LETTER-CARRIERS.

Coming Emancipation of the White Niggers.

August 7th.

POST-OFFICE MANAGEMENT:

OUR MISSING LETTERS AND OUR LATE DELIVERIES

THE LETTER-CARRIER’S “BILL OF FARE.”

14th.

POST-OFFICE REFORM BY MERIT:

REVELATIONS FROM ST. MARTIN’S-LE-GRAND.

HOPE FOR THE OPPRESSED.

THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL AND THE LONDON LETTER-CARRIERS.

These handbills with the articles were all that remained as sad mementos of a new experience and a great disappointment.

The day of postal deliverance was not yet. There were many hills of difficulty to climb ere they could hope even to catch a distant glimpse of the Promised Land.