A history of postal agitation from fifty years ago till the present day

by H. G. Swift

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.