Thomas Henry Glamorgan (one of the men).
London, January 1875.
Glamorgan’s verse was as the last vehement cry of despairing freedom in the Post-Office. The forces of discontent had been humbled and demoralised, if not wholly scattered; and liberty, cowering in a corner, was to remain dumb for many a day to come.
CHAPTER X
INTRODUCTION OF BOY LABOUR—CONDITIONS OF SERVICE—DEATH OF COMBINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES—POSTAL HELOTISM.
In the meantime, as if to contemptuously show that the agitating sorters could be dispensed with at any time, or their work done by child labour, the authorities, when the halfpenny post started in 1870, introduced a number of lads recruited mostly from boys leaving school. This was the introduction of the boy-sorter system, and while it presently assisted the department to play off against the men who were fighting for a better wage and other improvements, it efficiently furthered that principle of economy which was to be the all and end-all of those who governed. The department was henceforth to be run on commercial lines more than ever it had in the past; the more profit the great machine produced the more it might. The introduction of the boy-sorter system was yet another experiment in levelling down, and yet a further depreciation of their work, for which twenty years before the respectable salaries of clerks were paid. It was justified in so far as it provided an outlet for the telegraph messengers later on, whose only chance hitherto had been to go as postmen; but that economy was almost the sole object with the authorities, was almost proved from the miserable wage that was offered these boys. Ostensibly, they were brought in to do the rough routine work of assisting the sorters, and of carrying bags and gathering in the correspondence for disposal. But in a very short while they were, in addition to these menial tasks, put to the more arduous and responsible duties of sorting, and work almost identical with that of the ordinary sorters. For this these boys received six shillings a week—errand-boys’ wages. And the men who had been through all the rough times of the service for ten, fifteen, and twenty years past were still agitating for better wages and better conditions of work. This, to an extent, was the answer of the authorities. The introduction of boy labour to displace men discontented with their conditions was the best card they had yet played, and one which they calculated to check the further operations of the sorters, at least. It was not long, however, before there were some signs of dissatisfaction among the poorly-paid youngsters themselves, besides which it was becoming difficult to obtain the required number, and it was soon necessary to raise their wages to nine shillings a week. The responsibilities of their work increased proportionately, and soon there was little appreciable difference between the work attached to them and that on which ordinary sorters in the Newspaper Branch had been engaged. The only sop that was thrown to the overworked and underpaid stampers and sorters of this branch of the service was their being allowed to present their sons as candidates for the vacancies; though whether it was that they evinced too little sympathy with a scheme which might mean their own undoing, or that they were too disgusted themselves with the conditions of the service to think of bringing in their boys to share such prospects, is not certain; but few availed themselves of the opportunity. Not even the rise in wages to nine shillings a week for boys from fifteen to seventeen years of age, constantly surrounded with temptation to pilfer, and who were more or less saddled with work and responsibilities for which more wages had been paid only a short time previously, was any too generous for a profit-making public department. The boy sorters were emboldened to draw up a respectful petition urging a claim for a further improvement in pay. The petition was intercepted by a minor official, who smelt sulphur in it at once, and several of the poor boys were forthwith charged with leaguing themselves with the devil, or something as discreditable. It was enough for grown-up men with wives and families to ask for such things as higher wages and more considerate treatment, but when infants in the service followed such a bad example it was time to nip such juvenile ambitions in the bud. Possibly this little postal Bumble, dressed in brief authority, who thus undertook to protect the department from the predatory designs of these youngsters, fancied that a higher wage might demoralise them, or tempt them to marry too early. A number of these poor little Oliver Twists were admitted to examination singly, and some were so frightened at the enormity of the offence of asking for more that they timidly confessed on the spot that their humble petition had actually been indited by a grown-up sorter named Jacobs. The self-important little official gasped with astonishment, and prepared to reach for his official club. The delinquent, Jacobs—“Gentleman Jacobs” was his sobriquet among the force—was peremptorily sent for, and an immediate written explanation demanded of him as to why he did, on a certain date, in direct contravention of printed Rule No. 01565, incite and encourage these junior officers of her Majesty’s postal service to dissatisfaction in regard to their prospects and pay. Jacobs did as requested, justifying himself on three sheets of foolscap. It was not the incriminating “explanation” the official wanted. Jacobs flatly refused to state anything but the truth about the matter. If the over-zealous little official committed the folly of sending the case to the authorities, nothing came of it.
The trifling incident is mentioned only to show how subordinate officials with exaggerated notions of their duties may sometimes earn for the authorities even more criticism among the rank and file than they merit. The boy sorters afterwards were given twelve shillings a week, which was a little more in accordance with their value to the department. The treatment of the boy sorters reflected but little credit on those who were responsible. Those who were not harried out of the service after enduring its hardships for six months or so frequently survived only to become premature wrecks, eventually disqualified by the Medical Branch. Lads fresh from the country entering with high expectations, and it might be said almost lured into the service under false pretences, often fell early victims to consumption through their having to provide for themselves on their meagre wage. In too many cases insufficient food, the vitiated atmosphere of the sorting-office, the unnatural hours of duty, the bullying and the nerve-strain put on them all told, and even left their traces on them in after years. It was not to be wondered at that so many of those who had been boy sorters were almost as soon as they reached early manhood claimed by the White Death, consumption.
It was not long before this principle of cheap labour was further extended, and the existing sorting force threatened to be swamped by young recruits fresh from the ranks of the telegraph messengers or from school. Doubtless it was partly owing to this as well as to the bitter experience of the cruel dismissals that the men of the sorting force continued to bear their grievances in silence. From that time forward there had been a period of stagnation; the grumblings of discontent were reduced to a discreet whisper, and anything of the shape of agitation was now discredited. The sorters had not easily forgotten the sharp lesson that had been taught them, the risk they had undergone, and the ordeal through which they had passed. They knew they were now reduced by that defeat to the condition of serfs, that they were slowly being deprived of every right and privilege which goes to make the proud boast of an Englishman. It was either submitting to this or risking, almost with the certainty of further defeat, the bread and butter of their wives and little ones. The department had scored; but it had not entirely scotched the serpent of discontent. If the silence and inactivity of the men were thought to indicate contentment and a cheerful acceptance of the situation, the authorities were mistaken. Nowhere but in a Government department, either in England or Russia, could such a state of things exist. In no English workshop, where men had a trade in their hands and a kit of tools to call their own, would they have submitted for so long to the treatment meted out to them. For some considerable time after the dismissals, the remainder of the force were treated like would-be recalcitrants on whom it was necessary to keep a sharp eye, and on whom it was as necessary to inflict humiliation for their own good. Their convenience in the matter of sudden compulsory summonses for extra duty was entirely ignored, while the pay for such extra duty was unfair in the extreme. Commonly at the behest of a minor official they were compelled to stay beyond their legitimate time without any pay whatever. The growing intolerance of the smaller authorities towards the force gave encouragement to the minor superiors to exercise to the full their proclivity for bullying and browbeating the men on the smallest pretext. And the boy sorters themselves met with the least consideration of all. Being the juniors they were made to bear a more than proportionate share of the hardships of their elders. Scores of them left after a few months of it; and as many more had their dismissals procured by the merest whim of an overseer, or the caprice of a tyrannical inspector. The boy sorters had proved very handy to the department, both as a foil to the possibility of further agitation among the men and as an economical experiment; but they despised them; or if they did not actually despise them they allowed others to, and were utterly indifferent to the manner of their treatment. The majority of these lads were of an age too tender to be withdrawn safely from the influence of the home circle; yet many of them had only their bare wage of twelve shillings a week to enable them to lodge, clothe, feed, and keep themselves honest upon. They were of an age when the growing lad has all the appetites of the man, yet the authorities did not think it unfair to expect them to keep up a certain amount of respectability of appearance. The chance of supplementing their income was that of a compulsory summons in the middle of the night, or rather four o’clock in the morning, and from this hour till nine o’clock, five hours in all, performed before their actual day’s duty commenced; they were remunerated with one shilling, paid the following week. Whatever excuse was to be made for the East-End sweater, openly and professedly exploiting juvenile labour, there was none such to be made for a Government department like the Post-Office.