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

by H. G. Swift

The disaffection grew apace, and a consciousness of their strength and the justice of their demands rendered them reliant. The agitation was renewed with increased activity. Mr. Macliver and other M.P.’s rallied to their support. Numerous meetings were held all over the country, while the sympathy of the press and the public gave a character and an importance to their movement that could not much longer be ignored by the Government. The service was swept from end to end by a hurricane of discontent that had had no parallel even in the postmen’s agitation of a few years before. The telegraphists were angered, and anger was becoming defiance. It was becoming a question as to how much longer they could be kept within bounds.

Mr. Fawcett, true to his democratic instinct, felt the greatest reluctance in imposing restrictions on the right of free public meeting among postal servants. His attention had been drawn, both by the officials and in the House of Commons, to reports of public meetings of postal and telegraph employés, and he expressed himself cognisant of these proceedings, at the same time intimating that it was not his intention to interfere or to visit any official punishment on those who had taken a prominent part. Undoubtedly some of the platform utterances of this period were rather extreme, and the distinguished Postmaster-General was not kept in ignorance of the fact. His forbearance was that of a strong and courageous man, and he probably felt that the best reply he could give to all the far-fetched assertions of the impatient army under his control was to presently offer them the scheme which he was then so busily preparing.

But meeting followed meeting and protest followed protest, till the blind, badgered Postmaster-General felt that he was at last face to face with the stern reality of a threatened strike. Then for the first time he uttered a cry of resentment. They ought to have learnt by this time that the delay was not due to any neglect of his; they ought to have known by this time that he who had allowed the utmost freedom both in petitioning and public meeting, who lost no opportunity of finding out for himself what was wrong, was in reality an enemy of the official fetishism of which they most complained. In a Post-Office Circular issued March 30, 1881, he strongly animadverted on the extreme course they were pursuing, and the manner in which the facts of the recent interview had been distorted by several members of the deputation. He maintained that he had never made any intimation that he would receive them alone without the presence of the permanent officials; that it would have been contrary to all practice in the public service had the principal officers of the department not been present; and, as he had stated elsewhere, the object of the interview was simply to furnish him with such additional information as he might desire to receive. He expressed his strong disapprobation of their impatience and their method of showing it, but at the same time he conveyed a promise that nothing would prevent him from “doing full justice to the case of the telegraphists generally.”

The very severe rebuke contained in Mr. Fawcett’s circular to the postal telegraphists was by many among them felt to be in nowise undeserved, and being administered publicly did not tend to enhance the movement at the time, alienating as it did some amount of public sympathy. The honesty of purpose of the Postmaster-General was generally recognised, and his rebuke, coupled with an unequivocal promise to do them justice within reasonable time, somewhat restrained the more ardent among the agitators. The reflection that this blind philosopher and statesman was grappling with an immense difficulty and a complicated problem, affecting thousands of others besides telegraphists, demanding time, patience, insight, and judgment, at last sobered their impatience. For the most part they came to acknowledge they had been too impetuous, though a number regarded the reproof as unmerited.

Mr. Fawcett kept his promise honourably, and on June 18, 1881, his scheme for improved pay and revised classification, covering both the telegraph and postal sides of the service, was issued. It was then seen how stupendous must have been his task. While a threatening and angry crowd without were demanding immediate redress, he was now patiently and busily preparing proposals for their contentment, and now battling with the Treasury on their behalf, and to get those proposals accepted. He had accomplished a great task, and in the circumstances the telegraphists felt that deep gratitude was due to him. As he had been the very first to deal with the postal side of the question from a truly statesmanlike point of view, so he had been the first to approach the telegraphist difficulty in the same manner. The application of the Fawcett scheme to the telegraphists brought them immediate and material benefits, and gave them a status and a better-defined position as Government servants. The defects of the late Scudamore scheme were greatly diminished, but, needless to say, the improved scale of pay was even better appreciated than the improved prospects of promotion, while a more equitable rate of payment for overtime, and a reduction of night attendance to seven hours, payment for Christmas Day and Good Friday, constituted the more acceptable features of Mr. Fawcett’s measure for the telegraphists.

FAWCETT SCHEME, 1881 (TELEGRAPHISTS)
PROVINCES
Males.	Females.
Second Class.	Second Class.
12/-, 14/-, 16/-, by 1/6 to 30/-, 33/-, 36/-, or 38/-, according to class of office.	12/-, 14/-, 16/-, by 1/6 to 23/-, 24/-, 25/-, or 26/-, according to class of office.
First Class.	First Class.
40/-, by 2/- to 50/-.	27/-, by 1/6 to 32/-.
LONDON
Males.	Females.
Second Class.	Second Class.
12/-, 14/-, 16/-, £45, by £5 to £100.	10/-, 12/-, 14/-, by 1/- to 17/-; then by 1/6 to 27/-.
First Class.	First Class.
£110, by £6 to £140.	28/-, by 1/6 to 34/-.
Senior Class.
£150, by £8 to £190.

The concessions brought to them by the Fawcett scheme were evidently the result of much hard work and strong endeavour on Mr. Fawcett’s part. Every one felt that he had been animated by an honest desire to fairly meet them, and for such endeavours and such desire on his part they expressed their gratitude and thanks. But at the same time it was universally felt that he had to a great extent been balked in his intention to accord them full justice. They were sincerely grateful to him for his manly and honest treatment of their demands; but they knew that Mr. Fawcett’s hands were tied, that his liberty of action was circumscribed, and that what he had obtained for them had been strenuously contended for and grudgingly conceded. In high quarters the scheme was regarded as a generous one all round, and it is perhaps doubtful that the recommendations of Mr. Fawcett, if made by a lesser man and other than a Professor of Political Economy, would have been entertained and accepted. So that, in so far as it fell short of meeting their demands, they blamed Mr. Fawcett less than an unkind fate and the permanent officialdom in league with a suspicious and parsimonious Treasury.

As it was, however, they might have been prepared to accept the few flies in the ointment but for their discerning a disposition on the part of the authorities to whittle down at every opportunity the most acceptable and valued concessions contained in the scheme. Next to the improved wage-scales, perhaps one of the most highly-prized boons it gave them was that of reducing the night duty from eight to seven hours. But it had scarcely been conceded ere it was filched back from them with the declaration that “night” only meant from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. The ungenerous spirit in which the benefits of the Fawcett scheme were applied to the telegraphists taught them to examine into their bargain a little more closely. The result was they found many things wanting, and the absence of which convinced them that they were justified in continuing the agitation. It was acknowledged that Mr. Fawcett intended to place them on an equality with the postal staff in the matter of preferment, but it was contended that it was not done. It was pointed out that there was an apparent similarity of wages, but that it was more apparent than real. While it was admitted that Mr. Fawcett’s evident intention was to confer lasting benefits on both branches of the service, events would show that his retention of the discredited system of classification meant leaving to his successors a legacy of strife between them and their subordinates. Failing as the Fawcett scheme did to entirely eradicate the malignant growth of classification introduced by Mr. Scudamore, this scheme could not be accepted as a permanent remedy. By its operation, it was maintained, their rightful increments towards the maximum would be artificially arrested by class barriers. The effect would be to bar them from attaining a reasonable wage within a reasonable time, and they declared that they better required a present living wage than the far-off prospect of reaching £400 a year at the moment of being forced through old age to retire from the service. Such a “prospect” was nothing more than a cruel ignis fatuus while this delusive system of classification was sustained.