CHAPTER XXVII

THE PENNIES OF THE POOR

Cheap Postal Orders—Savings Bank—Life Insurance—Two Post Office Pamphlets to help the People—Cheap Telegrams—Telephones—‘The Man for the Post’—‘Words are Silver, Silence is Gold.’

[Sidenote: Postal Money Orders.]

It had been felt for some time that it would be possible to send small sums of money by post more cheaply. The only method, that of Post Office Money Orders, in force when Fawcett became Postmaster-General, was well described by him when he said: ‘If a boy wanted to send his mother the first shilling he had saved, he would have to pay twopence for the order and a penny for postage.’ A committee had a measure prepared to remedy this, and Fawcett quickly saw its value and got the measure passed through Parliament. Thus originated the Postal Order which is so familiar to us all.

[Sidenote: Postal Savings Bank.]

In making this change Fawcett had to overcome the opposition of the banking interest, who considered that the Government was infringing on their preserves. He came into conflict with them again when he increased the facilities of the Savings Bank. He made it possible to begin with the smallest sums by adopting the scheme of stamp slip deposits, which had been worked out and devised by Mr. Chetwynd, an official of the Post Office. This was a blank form which could be filled up with twelve penny stamps, and then deposited in the Savings Bank.

At this time Fawcett, with the help of a Mr. Cardin, another official, prepared his first popular pamphlet, called ‘Aids to Thrift.’ He took an enormous amount of interest in this little leaflet, which he felt would be a great help to the poor and ignorant. He tried to give the information printed in the regular Post Office Guide in the simplest language, so that the benefits offered by the Post Office could be easily grasped by the most ignorant.

[Sidenote: The Working Man who Insured.]

A sad incident set his mind to working out another scheme for lessening the difficulties of the working man. ‘A poor neighbour employed in a mill near Salisbury had fallen ill. He had insured himself in a certain society which was to pay him an allowance in case of illness. The allowance was stopped under certain pretences strongly suggestive of fraud. Fawcett, to whom he appealed, immediately called at the offices of the society. The secretary, not recognising his visitor, treated him with considerable insolence. Fawcett brought the man to his senses, extracted certain sums from the society, and took steps to investigate the nature of its business. He had the satisfaction of obtaining something for the poor man, who died not long afterwards. Fawcett did what he could for the family.’

[Sidenote: Post Office Annuities.]

The facts which he gleaned in connection with this case and others, as well as from his many friendships since childhood with labourers and peasants, made him realise the problems which beset the poor who wish to insure against the future. He improved the system of Post Office Annuities, and arranged for the publication of a short paper called ‘Plain Rules for the Guidance of persons wishing to make provision for the future with the aid of the Government.’ This also was to be had gratuitously, and did much to teach the poor how to provide for themselves.

[Sidenote: Cheaper Telegrams.]

Fawcett regretted that telegrams were too expensive to be a convenience for any but the rich. The betting ring and the Stock Exchange were its principal patrons. He was deeply interested in lowering the cost, so that telegrams could become useful to the ‘plain people.’ Among the first deputations to be given an audience by the new Postmaster, was one requesting cheap telegrams. He set himself with a will to get them, writing and speaking to urge this new reform. It meant a fresh expense for the Treasury, at least at the beginning, and he could not get the consent of that department. But there were many members of the House of Commons who favoured the change, and pushed it, relying on the Postmaster-General’s well-known sympathy. In 1883 they succeeded in outvoting the Government, and the adoption of sixpenny telegrams became certain.

[Sidenote: The Telegraph Boys.]

Fawcett always had a fellow-feeling for the small boy, and he was very anxious that the telegraph boys used in the Post Office should be kept in the service, mounting from their positions as understudies of Mercury to those of greater distinction and better pay. When on a visit to a friend in a suburb of a large manufacturing town, Fawcett found that his friend was able by telephone to direct his business in the town by half an hour’s conversation, and was then free for the rest of the day. This so greatly impressed Fawcett, that he became eager to give the public as large an enjoyment of telephones as possible. He was in favour of granting the widest possible liberty to qualified persons to start telephone exchanges, making the condition that the Post Office should be paid a royalty of ten per cent., and that no written telephone messages should be delivered. One of his last acts was the approval of a licence containing these terms, which was signed by his successor. He refused firmly but gently, in his last interview at the Post Office, to grant to a gentleman the protection which he asked for a small telephone company, thus showing himself to the last true to his belief in open competition.

[Sidenote: An Executive Genius.]

We have now seen something of Fawcett’s task at the Post Office, thirty-three years ago, and how he strove to do the work largely in accordance with our most approved and up-to-date methods. Some of his tools are now obsolete, the work has been changed in detail, but the philosophy and wisdom, the business sense and control which he showed in his four and a half years of office were what could be considered to-day so remarkable, so successful, as to amount to executive genius.

Sir Arthur Blackwood, who was Permanent Secretary to the Post Office in Fawcett’s day, used of his chief this striking phrase: ‘He had a passion for justice.’ His only criticism of Fawcett’s administration was that he was too lenient to erring subordinates, and apt to give too much time to details which might have been entrusted to others. His conclusion was: ‘The Post Office could never, I believe, have a more capable Postmaster-General, nor its officers a truer friend.’

As witness to this last, a post-office clerk wrote: ‘The humblest servant within the dominion of his authority was not left uncared for. During his history as Postmaster-General, a greatly improved state of feeling has been introduced among the officers in their general tone towards each other and towards those beneath them.’

The view of the country at large was equally emphatic. Let these verses from _Punch_, written after Fawcett had been two years in office, speak for the popular appreciation of his work:—

‘THE MAN FOR THE POST

John Bull _loquitur_

Well, well, here’s comfort, and, by Jove, it’s needed Amidst the chaos of cantankerous cackle, Here is one man has silently succeeded— One man who a tough job can stoutly tackle. O si sic omnes! In my blatant Babel Business is a lost art—at least it seems so. All the more honour to the Champion able Who still can realise my hopes and dreams so, To serve the State, to sagely shape and plan for it, Is the true Statesman’s part, and here’s the man for it.

No epic hero! Well, I’m getting weary Of the huge windiness now dubbed heroic, “Arms and the Man”—and a fiasco dreary Too oft repeated, irritate a Stoic Such as I’m grown. And then I’m not quite certain, Applied to him the name _is_ pure misnomer. _Fawcett_, though seldom called before the curtain, Perhaps in more than _one_ point pairs with _Homer_. Although one sang Achilles and his host, The other schemed, not sang, the Parcels Post.

Perhaps the large ambition that loves spangles And warrior fame might pooh-pooh the projectors, But I’m inclined to fancy Red Tape’s tangles Are tougher foes than many Trojan Hectors. Achilles as Laocoön might have thundered And thrust tremendously, and yet been throttled. St. Stephen’s spouters long have fought and blundered, And long my rising wrath I’ve choked and bottled, But I _am_ glad to see one silent, strong fellow, Who emulates the hero sung by Longfellow.

“Something attempted, something done!” Precisely! A friend of mine, who much inclined to scoff is, Declares when Fawcett’s plans have ripened nicely, The World will be a branch of the Post Office. Let the Wit wag, the World won’t find salvation In parcels or reply-cards, stamps or thriftiness; Danger there may be in “centralisation,” But after all the squabbling, hobbling shiftiness Of the cantankerous, rancorous jaw-jaw-jaw-set, ’Tis a relief to turn to turn to Henry Fawcett!’

The ‘one silent, strong fellow’ had learned a patience and tact in his later years that stood him in good stead when he found himself member of a Government, and there bound to refrain from criticising its actions. A story told of him at this time shows a gentle avoidance of differences not so common in his earlier days.

Professor Clifford, an old Cambridge friend, and secretary of the whilom Republican Club, died in 1880 leaving his widow in straitened circumstances. Professor Clifford was a mathematician of the first order, but, especially in his later years, he became an aggressive anti-religionist, and wrote much on these matters.

[Sidenote: A Widow’s Pension.]

Fawcett wanted to arrange for a pension for the widow, and took occasion to speak to the Prime Minister. Gladstone took Fawcett with him down to his room and asked him, ‘Who is the great man at Cambridge now?’ Fawcett mentioned the loss that the university had recently sustained by the death of its mathematician, carefully alluding to Professor Clifford in this manner. Gladstone said, ‘I always regarded him as a third-rate theologian.’ To which Fawcett said, ‘I know nothing about his theology, but as a mathematician he stood in the very front rank.’ This opinion of Fawcett’s so impressed Gladstone that Mrs. Clifford’s name was added to the Civil Pension List.

Fawcett would not have joined the Ministry unless he felt in real sympathy with its avowed principles, but it is probable that had he remained independent he would have found much to criticise. Leslie Stephen comments: ‘His position as a Minister without a seat in the Cabinet imposed reserve, whilst it did not enable him to exert any direct influence upon the Government. On some points I can only conjecture his probable views. Mr. Gladstone’s Government was especially notable for its Irish and Egyptian policy. In both cases I imagine Fawcett’s sympathy must have been imperfect.’

This position requiring silence, without giving him power to exert direct influence on the Government, must have been, to one of his frank, honest, fighting temperament, at times very difficult.

[Sidenote: Interest in Ireland.]

He was profoundly interested in Ireland, and felt that the only satisfactory symptom in Irish matters was the increased use of the Savings Bank. A friend of Fawcett’s having casually mentioned his name in a remote part of Ireland, was surprised at the exclamation, ‘Oh, we know all about him here!’ This remark was based on the fact that a girl from the district had gone with great credit through all the stages of a telegraph clerk’s position in the English General Post Office. On her quitting to get married, Fawcett had sent for her, and in the kindest manner thanked her for her past services, and offered his hearty good wishes for her happiness.

He felt strongly that exceptional legislation was required to deal with the land questions of Ireland, and that any legislation would be futile which did not reflect in some way the wishes of the Irish themselves. No one could be more opposed than he to Home Rule, which, he declared, meant ‘the disruption of the Empire.’ He would rather, as he said on one occasion, that the Liberal Party should remain out of office till its youngest member had grown grey with age, than be intimidated into voting for Home Rule. Still he held that some such legislation as that embodied in Mr. Gladstone’s Land Bill was necessary.

It is related that once at this time, when sitting with friends who were discussing the Irish irreconcilability, he kept repeating, as if to himself, ‘We must press on and do what is right’; and he wrote to his father, ‘There is nothing for it, but to persevere in doing justice in spite of all provocation.’

[Sidenote: Loyal Work and Loyal Silence.]

He felt that the Egyptian policy was weak, and on one or two occasions so far showed his distrust as to refuse to vote. But for the most part he absorbed himself in the work of his own department, and did it nobly. He gave hard work, sound sense, resolute purpose, and a gay elasticity of spirit which no weariness could break. It was truly said of him that he bettered everything and kept his eye on everything. In this, as in every task, he neared his ideal which he had expressed on leaving Cambridge: ‘To exert an influence in removing the social evils of our country, and especially the paramount one, the mental degradation of millions. I regard it as a high privilege of God if He will enable me to assist in such a work.’

A TRIUMPHANT END

‘Strive for the truth unto death, and the Lord shall fight for thee.’

‘The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal.’