CHAPTER IX

THE POST OFFICE EMPLOYEES PRESS THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FOR INCREASES OF WAGES AND SALARIES

British Government's policy as to wages and salaries for routine work, as distinguished from work requiring a high order of intelligence. The Fawcett revision of wages, 1881. Lord Frederick Cavendish, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, on pressure exerted on Members of Parliament by the telegraph employees. Sir S. A. Blackwood, Permanent Secretary to the Post Office, on the Fawcett revision of 1881. Evidence as to civil servants' pressure on Members of Parliament presented to the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1888. The Raikes revision of 1890-91; based largely on the Report of the Committee on the Indoor Staff, which Committee had recommended increases in order "to end agitation." The Earl Compton, M. P., champions the cause of the postal employees in 1890; and moves for a Select Committee in 1891. Sir James Fergusson, Postmaster General in the Salisbury Ministry, issues an order against Post Office servants "endeavoring to extract promises from any candidate for election to the House of Commons with reference to their pay or duties." The Gladstone Ministry rescinds Sir James Fergusson's order. Mr. Macdonald's Motion, in 1893, for a House of Commons Select Committee. Mr. Kearley's Motion, in 1895. The Government compromises, and appoints the so-called Tweedmouth Inter-Departmental Committee.

At the time of the transfer of the telegraphs to the State, February, 1870, the average weekly wages paid by the telegraph companies to the telegraphists in the seven largest cities of the United Kingdom, was $5.14 for the male staff, and $3.56 for the female staff. That average for the male staff includes the salaries of the supervisors; if the latter be excluded, the average for the rank and file of the male employees will fall to $4.80.[120] In 1872, two years after the transfer, the average wage of the male telegraphists in the offices of Metropolitan London was $6.56, while the average wage of the female clerks was $4.30. For the United Kingdom exclusive of London, the average wage of the telegraphists was $5.46 for the male employees, and $4.50 for the female employees.[121] The latter averages record a larger increase of wages in the period 1870 to 1872, than would appear at first blush upon comparison with the average of 1870, namely: $4.80 for men telegraphists and $3.56 for women telegraphists. For while the figures for 1872 record the averages for the whole United Kingdom exclusive of London, those for 1870 record the averages of the seven largest cities only.

The increases in wages and salaries in the years 1870 to 1872 were due mainly to the all round rise in wages and salaries that occurred in the United Kingdom in the period from 1868 to 1872. In the case of the telegraphists the rise in wages was postponed until 1870 to 1872, for the reason that the telegraph companies, as much as possible, adhered to the past scale of wages and salaries on account of the pending transfer of their properties to the State.[122] The companies were able to pursue the policy in question by refraining from increasing their forces materially, working their old staff over-time. In part, however, the increase in the wages of the telegraphists after the transfer of the telegraphs to the Post Office was due to the fact that the Government was obliged to pay the employees in the Telegraph Department something more than the rates of wages prevailing in the open market. For, previous to the acquisition of the telegraphs, the Government had established the policy of paying its employees more than the open market rate for work requiring only fidelity and diligence in the performances of routine duty, as distinguished from work requiring a high order of intelligence and discretion. Shortly after the Post Office had acquired the telegraphs, it was compelled to extend the aforesaid policy to the new body of State employees. As a matter of everyday politics, it proved impossible for the Government to discriminate between the several classes of public servants, paying one part of them "fancy" wages, and the rest of them wages determined by demand and supply.[123]

An episode from the reorganization of the Civil Service in 1876, in accordance with the recommendation of the so-called Playfair Commission, affords insight into the British practice of paying the public servants something more than the market rate of wages and salaries. The Playfair Commission had recommended that the pay of the lower division of Government clerks begin with $325, and rise by annual increments to $1,000, for seven hours' work a day. Thereupon the Government had fixed the rate at $400, to rise by annual increments to $1,000. The Playfair Commission had stated that if it had been guided by the "voluminous" evidence which it had taken, it would have fixed at $750, the maximum to which should rise the salaries of the lower division clerks. But it had desired to attract "the elite" of the classes that the Government could draw from, and therefore it had fixed the maximum at $1,000.[124]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Fawcett Revision of Wages, 1881_]

In August, 1881, the House of Commons accepted the proposal of Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, to increase the pay of the telegraph operators, to count seven hours of night attendance a day's work, and to grant various other minor concessions.[125] Those several changes raised the average sum spent for salaries and wages in the transmission of a telegraphic message, from 11.70 cents in 1880-81, to 13.72 cents in 1884-85.[126] Mr. Fawcett stated in the House of Commons that inquiry of "leading employees of labor, such as bankers, railway companies, manufacturers, and others" had led him to conclude that the telegraph operators were underpaid. He also mentioned the fact that while he was considering the arguments that the telegraphists had made before him in support of the proposition that their pay was inadequate, "outside influence" was brought to bear repeatedly upon the telegraphists, and that the aforesaid outside influence "went so far as to recommend the employees to resort to the last extremity of a strike."[127]

Mr. MacIver replied that "he wished to say a word with regard to the imputation contained in the statement of the Right Honorable Gentleman, that he [Mr. MacIver] had exercised outside influence upon the telegraphists. In common with other members of the House, he had heard[128] the complaints of the telegraphists, and had thought it his duty to bring complaints before the House and the Right Honorable Gentleman, the Postmaster General, so that, if he had erred, he had erred in common with many others."

[Sidenote: _The Treasury on Civil Service Pressure_]

In the course of the debate in the House of Commons, Lord Frederick Cavendish, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said: "With respect to the telegraph clerks, since they had received the franchise, they had used it to apply pressure to Members of Parliament for the furtherance of their own objects.... If, instead of the Executive being responsible, Members of the House were to conduct the administration of the departments, there would be an end of all responsibility whatever. In the same way, if the Treasury was not to have control over expenditure, and Members of the House were to become promoters of it, the system [of administering the national finances] which had worked so admirably in the past would be at an end.... With regard to the position of the telegraphists in the Government Service as compared with their former position under private companies, what had taken place would be a warning to the Government to be careful against unduly extending the sphere of their operations by entering every day upon some new field, and placing themselves at a disadvantage by undertaking the work of private persons. He pointed out that the Government Service was always more highly paid than that of the companies and private persons, and in the particular case of the telegraph clerks [operators] the men themselves received higher pay than they had before."[129]

Before the Postmaster General had introduced into Parliament his scheme for improving the positions of the telegraphists, sorting clerks and postmen,[130] Lord Frederick Cavendish, in his position as Financial Secretary of the Treasury,[131] had written the Postmaster General as follows: ... "Admitting, as my Lords [of the Treasury] do, that when discontent is shown to prevail extensively in any branch of the Public Service, it calls for attention and inquiry, and, so far as it is proved to be well founded, for redress, they are not prepared to acquiesce in any organized agitation which openly seeks to bring its extensive voting power to bear on the House of Commons against the Executive Government responsible for conducting in detail the administration of the country. The persons who are affected by the change now proposed are, as you observe, no fewer than 10,000, and the entire postal service numbers nearly five times as many. Other branches of the Civil Service employed and voting in various parts of the United Kingdom, are at least as numerous in the aggregate as the servants of the Post Office. All this vast number of persons, not living like soldiers and sailors outside ordinary civil life are individually and collectively interested in using their votes to increase, in their own favor, the public expenditure, which the rest of the community, who have to gain their living in the unrestricted competition of the open market, must provide by taxation, if it is provided at all. My Lords therefore reserve to themselves the power of directing that the execution of the terms agreed to in the preceding part of the letter be suspended in any post office of which the members are henceforth known to be taking part in extra-official agitation. They understand that you are inquiring whether the law, as declared in the existing Post Office Acts, does not afford to the public similar protection in respect of postal communication, including telegraphs, as is afforded by the Act 38 and 39 Victoria, c. 86, s. 4, to municipal authorities and other contractors, against breaches of contracts of service in respect of gas or water, the wilful interruption to the use of which [by means of a strike] is hardly of more serious import to the local community than is that of postal communications to the national community. If the existing Post Office Acts do not meet this case, it will be for my Lords to consider whether the circumstances continue to be such as to make it their duty to propose to Parliament an extension to the Post Office of provisions similar to those cited above from the Act 38 and 39 Victoria, c. 86, s. 4."[132]

In June, 1882, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, said in the House of Commons: "The House would remember how, last session, he was pressed by honorable Members on both sides of the House to increase the pay of the telegraph employees ... in spite of all that was done for the telegraph employees, he noticed that they were constantly saying that what they received was worse than nothing. All he could say was that if $400,000[133] a year out of public funds was worse than nothing, he, for one, deeply regretted that that sacrifice of public money was ever made."[134] In March, 1883, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, said: "The salaries of the telegraph employees have--I will not say by the pressure of the House, but certainly with the approval of the House--been increased [in 1881]. I do not regret that increase; I think the extra pay they receive was due to them, and if I had not thought so, no number of memorials would have induced me to recommend the Treasury to make such a large sacrifice of revenue."[135] In April, 1884, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, said: "$750,000 a year has been spent [of late] in improving the position of the telegraphists and letter sorters, and I say there never was an expenditure of public money which was more justifiable than that. If we had yielded to mere popular demands and thrown away the money we should deserve the severest censure; but I believe that if an increase of wages had not been conceded, it would have been impossible to carry on the administration of the Department; and I think there is no economy so unwise as refusing to increase remuneration when you are convinced that the circumstances of the case demand the increase."[136]

In July, 1888, the following questions and answers passed between the Chairman of the Select Committee on Revenue Departments Estimates, and Sir S. A. Blackwood, Secretary to the Post Office. "With respect to the increase of salaries at the time when Mr. Fawcett was Postmaster General, I presume that those recommendations of his were founded upon recommendations addressed to him by the [permanent officers of the] Department?" "I can hardly say that they were. Mr. Fawcett held very strong views himself as to the propriety of making an increase to the pay of the lower ranks of the Department, and he carried out that arrangement." "But the Department, I take for granted, was not excluded from expressing an opinion upon the subject?" "Certainly not. I became Secretary at the time [1880] when Mr. Fawcett became Postmaster General.[137] I never should have initiated such a movement, but I saw great force in many of the reasons which Mr. Fawcett urged in favor of such an increase; and, at any rate, the Department, as represented by me, saw no reason to raise a serious opposition, if it were at liberty to do so, to the Postmaster General's views and determinations."[138]

Before the Tweedmouth Committee, 1897, Mr. E. B. L. Hill, "practically commander-in-chief of the provincial postmen," testified as follows upon that part of the Fawcett revision of 1882 that applied to the postal service proper. He said that previous to 1882 all the revisions of the wages of the postmen had been made on the basis of demand and supply; but that the Fawcett revision had departed from that policy.[139]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Evidence, in 1888, as to Civil Service Pressure_]

The Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1888, took up at some length, the question of the pressure brought by the civil servants upon the House of Commons for increases of wages and salaries. Before that Commission, Sir Reginald E. Welby, who had entered the Treasury in 1856, had become Assistant Financial Secretary in 1880, and had been made Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in 1885, testified that many Members of the House of Commons had recently attended meetings of the civil servants for the purpose of endorsing the claims of the civil servants for increases of pay; and that they had taken that action without having made a close examination of the grounds upon which the civil servants had put forward their claims. He added: "It is utterly impossible for us [the Treasury] to ignore these symptoms that make it very difficult to keep within reasonable bounds the remuneration of such a body." Thereupon one of the members of the Royal Commission said to Sir R. Welby: ... "but are you not aware that there is a general feeling throughout the country among the people who are employed by private individuals and public bodies [other than the State], that Government servants receive higher pay than they do, and that when these persons are called upon to exercise the franchise they bring pressure to bear upon their Members just the other way [_i. e._, against the increase of government wages and salaries]?" Sir R. Welby replied: "Of course, I have no means of testing that. I am very glad to hear that Parliamentary influence is not all in one direction. We do not see the proof of it at the Treasury."[140]

Sir Algernon E. West, Chairman Inland Revenue Commissioners,[141] said he wished for a greater spirit of economy, "not in the offices so much as outside."

Thereupon the Chairman of the Royal Commission said: "I do not quite understand what you mean by outside." Sir Algernon E. West replied: "I say it with all possible deference, particularly Parliament." To the further query: "Has there been on the part of Members of Parliament, an increase of intervention on behalf either of the individual officers of the Inland Revenue or on behalf of classes of the Inland Revenue since the enfranchisement in 1869?" Sir A. West replied: "A large increase on behalf of classes, not of individuals.... I should like to add ... that I think last year the Lower Division clerks succeeded in getting two hundred Members of Parliament to attend a meeting which was held to protest against their grievances."[142]

Sir Lyon Playfair, who had been Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, 1874 to 1876, and the author of the Playfair Reorganization of the Civil Service, 1876, testified as follows before the Royal Commission of 1888. "Unfortunately Members of Parliament yield to pressure a great deal too much in that direction, and they are certainly pressing the Exchequer to increase the wages and salaries of the employees of the Crown.... In a private establishment a man looks after his own interests, and if a person came to him and said: 'Now you must increase the salaries of these men by $100 or $250 all round,' he would say: 'You are an impertinent man, you have no business to interfere,' but you cannot say that to Members of Parliament, and there is continual pressure from Members of Parliament to augment the salaries of the civil servants."[143]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _Raikes Revision of 1890-91_]

With the increase of the number of telegraphic messages transmitted, from 33,278,000 in 1884-85, to 62,403,000 in 1889-90, the average sum spent on wages and salaries per message transmitted, fell from 13.72 cents in 1884-85, to 10.62 cents in 1889-90. In the following year, 1890-91, Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, inaugurated an extensive scheme of increases in wages, reductions in the hours of work, and other "improvements in the condition" of the telegraph employees, that again raised to 12.28 cents per message in 1894-95, the average sum spent on wages and salaries. Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, raised the wages of the supervising staff, as well as the wages of the rank and file;[144] he granted payment at one and one-quarter rates for over time, granted payment at double rates for all work done on Sunday, gave extra pay for work done on Bank Holidays, and increased from half pay to full pay the sick-leave allowance. The annual cost of those concessions Mr. Raikes estimated at $500,000 a year. The cost of the concessions granted at the same time to the employees in the postal branch of the Post Office Department, he estimated at $535,000 a year.[145]

Mr. Raikes' schemes were based largely upon the _Report of Committee of the Indoor Staff_. That Report has not been published; but in 1896, Mr. Lewin Hill, Assistant Secretary General Post Office, London, stated before the so-called Tweedmouth Committee,[146] that the majority of the committee on the Indoor Staff had signed the Report because they believed that if the concessions recommended in the Report were granted, "that would be the end of all agitation." Mr. Hill added: "I remember myself saying [to the Committee] whatever else happens, that will not happen. Do not delude yourselves with the notion that the men will cease to ask." He continued: "Mr. Raikes' improvements were received with the greatest gratitude, and there were any number of letters of thanks from the staff; but the ink was scarcely dry when the demands began again, and they have been going on ever since, and will go on.... There is, unfortunately, a growing habit among the main body of Post Office servants to use their voting power at elections to get higher pay for themselves, and it is well known that in constituencies in which political parties are at all evenly balanced, the Post Office servants can turn the election."

[Sidenote: _Earl Compton demands a Select Committee_]

The Committee on the Indoor Staff appointed by Mr. Raikes in March, 1890, had not had the approval of the rank and file of the civil servants, nor had it had the approval of the representatives of the civil servants in the House of Commons, on the ground that it consisted of government officials, who were not responsible directly to the voters. Therefore one of the leading representatives in the House of Commons of the Post Office employees, Earl Compton,[147] on April 15, 1890, had moved: "That, in the opinion of the House, the present position of the telegraphists in London and elsewhere is unsatisfactory, and their just grievances require redress."[148] In the course of his argument, Earl Compton said: "Perhaps the Right Honorable Gentleman [the Postmaster General] has been cramped [in the administration of his department] by what is called officialism. In that case, if the present motion is passed, the Right Honorable Gentleman's hands will be strengthened [against his permanent officials], and he will be able to redress the grievances which have been brought under his attention."

Baron F. de Rothschild followed Earl Compton, with the statement: "The Postmaster General may well say it is no business of ours to interfere between the civil servants and himself, but here I would venture to ask him whether the civil servants are not quite as much our [_i. e._, the public's] servants as they are those of the Postmaster General?" Baron de Rothschild went on to say that through an error made in the course of the transmission of a telegram his betting agent had placed his money on the wrong horse, causing him to lose a considerable sum of money. Such mistakes would not occur if the telegraphists were better paid.

Sir A. Borthwick regretted "the increasing tendency to invoke the direct interposition of Parliament between the Executive Government and the Civil Service."

The Postmaster General concluded his statement with the words: "I hope that after the statement which I have been able to make, the House will recognize the claim of every Government that the House shall not interfere with matters of Departmental administration, except where it thinks fit to censure the Minister in charge. So long as a Minister occupies his position at the head of a department, he ought to be allowed to occupy it in his own way. I venture to hope that the House will leave questions of this sort in the hands of those who are directly and primarily responsible for them, in the belief that grievances of the servants of any department are not likely to lack careful consideration, and, I believe, just and fair treatment."

A few months later, the Postmaster General made this statement in the House of Commons: "I wish to correct one misapprehension. It is supposed that the position of the Government is that only the market value should be paid for labor of this sort [the nonestablished post office servants]. Those who sat in the Committee [of Supply] will remember that I laid down a different doctrine the other day. My own view is, that while the market value must be the governing consideration, because we are not dealing with our own money, but with the money of the taxpayers, the taxpayers would wish that, in applying that standard to those in the Public Service, we should always bear in mind that a great Government should treat its employees liberally."[149]

* * * * *

Earl Compton failed to carry his motion in 1890; and in the following year he made another unsuccessful attempt, moving: "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the Administration of the Post Office."[150]

Mr. Ambrose, speaking against the motion, said: "Questions between capital and labor and between the Government and its employees should not be influenced by motions in the House. We are all subjected as Members of this House to all manner of whips from employees of the Civil Service and the Post Office, and I know that when the _status_ of the Civil Service clerks was being settled some time ago, there was, among Members generally, a feeling of disgust at the telegrams and letters being received almost very minute from people seeking to influence our votes on some particular question of interest to them."

Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, enumerated in detail the concessions made to the telegraphists and letter sorters in 1890 and 1891, at a cost of $1,035,000 a year, and added: "and to all this, not one single reference has escaped those who have spoken." He concluded with the words: "It would never do if, in order to encourage the vaporings of three or four of those gutter journals which disfigure the Metropolitan Press, Members of this House were to make the grave mistake of throwing discredit upon a body of men like the permanent officials [Executive Officers] of the Post Office, of whom any country might be proud, with whom, I believe, any Minister would be delighted to work, and of diminishing the authority in his own Department of a Minister, who, whatever may be his personal deficiencies, at heart believes that he has done nothing to forfeit the confidence of this House."

A few months later, when the House was considering the Estimates of the Post Office Department, the Postmaster General said: "Economists [advocates of economy] of former days would have been interested and surprised by the general tenor of the debate to which we have just listened. The great point used to be, as I understand, to show a large balance of revenue to the State [from the Post Office], and to make a defense against charges of extravagance in the past. But we have now arrived at a time when the opposite course is to be taken, and the only chance a Minister has of enjoying the confidence of this House is to point to a diminished balance of revenue and to a greater expenditure on the part of the department." ... In 1891-92 our telegraph expenditure will increase by $3,000,000, while our revenue will increase by $1,700,000; "the reason is to be found in the very comprehensive measures framed in the course of the last year for the improvement of the position of the staff."[151]

[Sidenote: _Civil Servants circularize Members of Parliament_]

Mr. Raikes died in August, 1891; and in June, 1892, Sir James Fergusson, his successor, asked the House of Commons to permit him to call attention to a circular addressed to Candidates at the [impending] General Election, and also sent to Members of the [present] House. The circular had been issued by "The Provincial Postal Telegraph Male Clerks" to "Candidates at the General Election," and contained the following statement: "We have, in addition, to ask you whether you will, if elected, vote for the appointment of a Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the working of the Telegraph Service, as we believe such an investigation would be of great utility, and could not but tend to the improvement of the service, the state of which is causing great public dissatisfaction, as will be seen from the subjoined newspaper extracts. In conclusion, we beg to state that we await your reply to these few questions of vital importance with considerable anxiety, and trust that you will give them your careful consideration."

Sir James Fergusson added that another branch of the Post Office servants was issuing similar circulars.[152]

He said, "I think that there would be an end to the discipline which should characterize members of the Public Service if encouragement were given to such attempts to bring pressure to bear on Members of the House and Candidates on the eve of a General Election.... I have to say that the leading Members of the Opposition, including the right honorable Member for Midlothian [Mr. W. E. Gladstone], and the right honorable Member for Derby [Sir Wm. Harcourt], fully concur in the observations I have made."[153]

A few days later, the Postmaster General issued the following notice: "The Postmaster General at the same time warns Post Office servants that it would be improper for them, in combination or individually, to endeavor to extract promises from any candidate for election to the House of Commons with reference to their pay or duties."

In the House of Commons Sir James Fergusson defended this notice in these words: "I in no way deny the right of Members of the Public Service to appeal to Members of this House to get their case represented here, but there is all the difference between Members being asked to represent a _prima facie_ case, and candidates being asked to pledge themselves upon an ex-parte statement to support a revision [of wages and salaries] or a commission of inquiry--in fact, to prejudge the case. To ask for such a promise as a condition of giving a vote does seem to me inconsistent with the duties of a public servant, and to go beyond his constitutional privileges. In that view the warning has been issued. By what law or right has this been done, the honorable Member asks? By the right and duty which belongs to the head of a Department to preserve proper discipline."[154]

In August, 1892, the Salisbury Government was succeeded by the Gladstone Government, and Mr. Arnold Morley became Postmaster General. On August 28, 1893, Mr. W. E. Gladstone, First Lord of the Treasury, in reply to a question from Mr. Macdonald, said: "Questions may be raised, on which I have no judgment to give on the part of the Government, as to how far, for example, it is desirable for the public functionaries to make use of their position as voters for the purpose of obtaining from candidates promises or engagements tending directly to the advantage of public servants in respect of pay and promotion. These are matters which we deem not undeserving of consideration; but still they do not form the subject of any decision on the part of Her Majesty's Government in the nature of a restraint."[155] In accordance with the policy thus announced, the Gladstone Ministry rescinded Sir James Fergusson's order of June 17, 1892.[156]

[Sidenote: _Mr. Macdonald demands a Select Committee_]

In September, 1893, while the House was in Committee of Supply, Mr. Macdonald[157] moved "a reduction of $500 in respect of the Salary of the Postmaster General", in order to bring before the committee the demand of the Post Office employees for "an independent inquiry by a Parliamentary Committee." He stated "that in 1891 the present Postmaster General [Mr. Arnold Morley] voted in favor of an inquiry such as that for which he [Mr. Macdonald] now asked, and he wished to know whether anything had occurred to cause the Right Honorable Gentleman to change his view since that time."[158]

The Postmaster General, Mr. Morley, replied: "He was asked how he could account for his vote in 1891 when he had supported the Motion of the noble Earl, the Member for Barnsley [Earl Compton]? He accounted for it on two grounds: He had supported the proposal, which was an unprecedented one, because there was an unprecedented condition of discontent prevailing throughout the Postal and Telegraph Service--or, he confessed, he was under that impression at the time. The condition of things in various branches of the Service was serious. There had been an _émeute_ in the Savings Bank Department, and whether with reason or without reason, the whole of the Services were discontented with their position. The condition of things at present, however, did not bear out the idea that there was anything like general discontent prevailing. He accounted for his action on another ground. Since 1891 large concessions had been made, with enormous additional expense to the country, and that made the state of things very different to what it was when he supported the noble Earl's Motion."

Earl Compton said: "He had several times in past years stood up and spoken for the telegraph clerks, and as the Amendment before the committee related practically to them, it would be dishonest and mean on his part, if, having taken a strong course [while sitting] in opposition, he did not take the same course now his friends were in power."

Mr. Macdonald's Motion was lost.

[Sidenote: _Mr. Kearley demands a Select Committee_]

In May, 1895, Mr. Kearley[159] moved: "That in the opinion of this House, it is highly desirable that the terms and conditions of employment in the Post Office should be made the subject of competent and immediate inquiry, with a view to the removal of any reasonable cause of complaint which may be found to exist."[160] The Motion was seconded by Sir Albert K. Rollit.[161] Mr. Kearley stated at the outset, that his remarks would be directed to the advisability of granting some inquiry. He was not in a position to assert that any particular alleged grievance really existed as stated by the employees; but there could be no doubt that there was general discontent. Mr. Kearley next stated that the most serious grievance alleged by the Post Office employees was inadequacy of pay arising from stagnation of promotion. It was true that at the time the blocking extended only to the more highly paid portions of the rank and file, but it must soon extend to the general body of employees unless relief were afforded. In 1880, and in 1890, Parliament had sanctioned respectively the Fawcett revision of wages, and the Raikes revision, for the purpose of correcting inadequacies of pay arising from stagnation of promotion. The employees now demanded the abolition of the classes into which were divided the various grades of the rank and file of the Post Office employees; they demanded assured promotion to a definite maximum wage or salary.

That demand rested on the assumption that the employees had a vested right to the rate of promotion that had obtained under the extraordinary increase of telegraphic business that had followed the transfer of the telegraphs to the State in 1870, and had followed the adoption of the 12 cent tariff in October, 1885.[162]

Mr. Kearley supported his argument by reference to the telegraphists, who enter the service between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, as second class telegraphists, and in the course of fourteen years rise by annual increments from the wage of $3 a week to $10 a week. At the latter wage they remain, unless they are promoted to be first class telegraphists, whose wages rise by annual increments, from $10 a week to $14 a week--payment for over-time, and so forth, being excluded in all cases. Mr. Kearley argued that promotion from the second class to the first class was blocked, stating that in Birmingham, in the last 4-3/4 years, only 11 men in 168 had been promoted from second class telegraphists to first class telegraphists; and that in Belfast and Edinburgh the annual rate of promotion had been respectively 1.14 per cent. and 2 per cent. Those instances, said the speaker, were typical of the larger cities; the conditions in the smaller cities and in the towns being still worse.

Mr. Arnold Morley, Postmaster General, replied to this part of Mr. Kearley's argument with the statement that there were in London and in the Provinces 3,308 second class male telegraphists, and that out of that number only 65 were both eligible for promotion and in receipt of the maximum wage of the second class, namely $10 a week. He added that the average wage of the men telegraphists who had been promoted from the second class to the first in 1894 had been $8.46. That meant that, on an average, the men in question had been promoted three years before they had reached the maximum wage of the second class. The Postmaster General characterized as "extraordinarily misleading" the source from which Mr. Kearley had taken his statements of fact, namely, a table in a pamphlet issued by the telegraphists in support of their contention that promotion was blocked. The compilers of the table had left out promotions "due to causes other than what were termed ordinary causes, namely promotions due to appointments to postmasterships and chief clerkships, to transfers from provincial offices to the central office in London, and to reductions of officers on account of misconduct." Thus at Birmingham there had been, not 11 promotions, but 16; at Liverpool, not 8, but 37; at Belfast, not 4, but 14; at Newcastle, not 5, but 24; at Bristol, not 6, but 13; at Southampton, not 2, but 8.

The second alleged grievance brought forward by Mr. Kearley related to the so-called auxiliary staff, which consisted of men who supplemented their earnings in private employment by working for the Post Office in the mail branch. It was stated that the Post Office was paying the auxiliary staff from $3.75 to $4.00 a week, whereas it should pay at least $6.00 a week. The third grievance related to the so-called split duties, which involved in the course of the 24 hours of the day more than one attendance at the office. The abolition of those duties was demanded. The fourth grievance was that some of the younger employees were obliged to take their annual three weeks' vacation [on full pay] in the months of November to February.

Sir Albert Rollit,[163] in seconding the motion, termed "reasonable" the demand of the telegraphists that the wages of the London telegraphists should rise automatically to $1,150 a year; and those of the provincial telegraphists to $1,000 a year. At the time the maximum wage attainable in London was $950, while the maximum attainable in the provinces was $800. Sir Albert Rollit added that the recent order of the Post Office that first class telegraphists must pass certain technical examinations or forego further promotion and further increments in pay, "amounted almost to tyranny," and he further reflected that "where law ended, tyranny began." Sir Albert Rollit, an eminent merchant and capitalist, contended that when the existing body of telegraphists had entered the service, no knowledge of the technics of telegraphy had been required, and that therefore it would be a breach of contract to require the present staff to acquire such knowledge unless it were specifically paid for going to the trouble of acquiring such knowledge. That contention of Sir Albert Rollit was but one of many instances of the extraordinary doctrine of "vested rights" developed by the British Civil Service, and recognized by the British Government, namely, that the State may make no changes in the terms and conditions of employment, unless it shall indemnify by money payments the persons affected by the changes. If the State shall be unwilling to make such indemnification, the changes in the terms and conditions of employment must be made to apply only to persons who shall enter the service in the future; they may not be made to apply to those already in the service. This doctrine is supported in the House of Commons by eminent merchants, manufacturers and capitalists. Sir Albert K. Rollit, for instance, is a steamship owner at Hull, Newcastle and London; a Director of the National Telephone Company, and he has held for six years and five years respectively the positions of President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom and President of the London Chamber of Commerce.

When Sir Albert Rollit argued that the Government had broken faith with the telegraphers, those public servants, acting under instructions from their leaders, were neglecting to avail themselves of their opportunities to learn the elementary scientific principles underlying telegraphy, and were even repudiating the obligation to acquire knowledge of those principles. The state of affairs was such that the Engineer-in-Chief of the Telegraphs, Mr. W. H. Preece, began to fear that before long he would be unable to fill the positions requiring an elementary knowledge of the technics of telegraphy.[164]

Mr. Arnold Morley, Postmaster General, began his reply to Mr. Kearley's Motion with the statement that "he understood the mover of the Motion spoke on behalf of those in the Post Office service who had taken an active part in the promoting what he might call an agitation, and that his [Mr. Kearley's] position was that, in the condition of feeling in the service, some steps ought to be taken which would enable the real facts to be brought not only before the public, but before Parliament." ... He [Mr. Morley] had made a careful examination of most of the alleged grievances during the three years he had been at the Post Office, and though he had satisfied himself that in the main they were not well founded, he recognized that a very strong feeling existed not only among a portion of the staff, but also among the public, and among Members of the House.

[Sidenote: _The Civil Servants' Campaign of Education_]

The feeling in question the Postmaster General attributed largely to the manner in which the case of the telegraphists had been presented by the telegraphists in the House of Commons, and in the newspaper press. He spoke of the "extraordinarily misleading" table of promotions published by the telegraphists. He then went on to state that recently the Postmaster at Bristol had reorganized the local telegraph office. By reducing the amount of over-time work, and by abolishing four junior offices, he had effected a saving of $3,000 to $3,500 a year. Thereupon a local newspaper had come out with the heading: "A Premium on Sweating;" and had made the statement, which was not true, that the local Postmaster had received a premium of $500 for effecting a saving of $3,800 at the expense of the staff.[165] Mr. Morley continued with the statement that in June, 1894, a deputation from the London Trades Council had complained to the Postmaster General that skilled electric light men were often employed by the Post Office at laborer's wages at its factory at Holloway, citing the case of one Turner. Upon inquiry the Postmaster General had learned that Turner had been employed as a wireman, had been "discharged from slackness of work," and, upon his own request in writing, had been taken back "out of kindness" as a laborer. The same deputation had mentioned the case of one Harrison, alleged to be earning on piece work, at the Holloway Factory, $1.75, $2.25, and $3.75 a week. On inquiry the Postmaster had ascertained that Harrison was able to earn $10 a week and more, but that "for the purpose of agitation, he had deliberately lowered the amount of his wages by abstaining from doing full work." After the Postmaster General had informed the London Trades Council of the facts of the case, that body had passed resolutions denouncing the postal authorities at the Holloway Factories. Again, Mr. Churchfield, Secretary of the Postmen's Federation, in an interview with the representative of a London newspaper had stated that the shortest time worked by the men on split duties was 12-3/4 hours, while the longest was 22 hours [in the course of one day and night]. A duty of seven hours lasting from 8 p. m. to 10 p. m., and from 12 p. m. to 5 a. m., Mr. Churchfield had called a continuous duty of twenty-two hours, lasting from 12 p. m. to 10 p.