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

by H. G. Swift

These things are mentioned to show that it was not merely a love of agitation for itself that animated the telegraphists at this period. To fully recount their grievances, it would be necessary to go into a mass of technical detail that would only confuse, and no better convince than the few general facts recorded. Added to all this, there was much dissatisfaction regarding the holiday question. The annual leave was distributed throughout the year, so that many went for years without a summer holiday, while for the loss of Bank holidays there was no equivalent given. Then, again, the conditions and environments of their work were not everything to be desired. There was, too, such a thing as “telegraphists’ cramp,” analogous to writers’ cramp, which the growing pressure of telegraph work had introduced among the operators. True, it was not of very frequent occurrence, but it was something to be reckoned with, and no man knew when his turn might come. Telegraphists’ cramp, it appears, is a nerve-wringing, brain-torturing malady, varying in degree of intensity. In one individual it may be confined to simply the nervous inability to signal particular letters, in itself a fatal defect in a telegraphist. Whatever be the pathological explanation of this very curious nervous phenomenon, it undoubtedly affects telegraphists more or less, and is something to be feared, more particularly in its ultimate results. It is a malady of such a peculiar nature that those to the eye physically able yet may be absolute wrecks as regards their nerves and the operation of signalling particular things.

Such, then, were the grievances under which the telegraphists laboured between 1881 and 1890. During the interval of that eight or nine years there was, of course, a plethora of petitions and applications for interviews; there were public meetings, a few suspensions here and there, inflammatory speeches, annual conferences, and more or less sympathetic notices in the press of their doings. But there was nothing actually achieved by the agitation so far. Some splendid individual efforts were made, however, meanwhile; and the names of Hughes, most prominent during 1884, North, Norman, and others, will long be remembered as men who fearlessly led the van when it was a perilous and delicate task to do so. The individual efforts of these men did much to secure the co-operation of Parliamentary friends and public men, and among those whose services were so secured may be mentioned Sir John Puleston, Mr. Henry Broadhurst, and Mr. Charles Bradlaugh. Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, it will be remembered, did much to promote the earlier postal agitation of 1872-74, and he once more came on the scene to help the telegraphists as he had helped the letter-carriers. He later identified himself particularly with the question of payment for Sunday labour for telegraphists. It was left to Mr. Charles Bradlaugh in the House to take the ballot for a direct motion, and it is not too much to say that it was owing to the number of promises procured by him to vote for this special motion that it was prevented from becoming a very close one. He procured the promises of many Conservatives as well as the bulk of the Liberal party. The Postmaster-General, after first previously declining to grant this Sunday concession, as the result gave in, and the victory of this question was complete. Altogether too much gratitude cannot be given to Mr. Bradlaugh for the manner in which he generally worked for the telegraphists at this time.

There was a deal of work, a laying-in of stores and ammunition for future use, a deal of speech-making, letter-writing to M.P.’s, and a general tightening-up of the telegraphists’ forces. But there was no immediate and actual benefit secured, and nothing of an exciting nature worthy of being recorded as an event till 1889-90. The telegraph staff, in common with the rest of Government servants, had been cajoled into the belief that the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments would come to afford them some relief, or at least listen to their plaint. Much of the work in which they had latterly been engaged was occupied in the preparation of evidence for this expected inquiry. The disappointment that ensued only gave a stronger impetus to the agitation, and from theorising and pursuing debating-society methods they adopted a firmer and more aggressive attitude. As with the letter-sorters, they found that the evidence they had prepared and the weight of facts they had accumulated, so far from being waste material and a deadweight, came in very useful now for powder and shot with which to enforce their demands.

What was regarded as an unduly harsh interference with the right of combination at Cardiff some little time afterwards, tended very considerably to arouse the fighting spirit in them, and to bring things to the climax of an open struggle. It was only necessary at this juncture to give the telegraphists a few martyrs to emphasise their grievances, and arouse them to action.

In the August of 1889 a disgraceful state of affairs appears to have existed at Cardiff, telegrams being frequently seriously delayed owing to want of sufficient staff. A paragraph appeared in a local paper, the Western Mail, complaining of the delay. On this editorial peg, numerous articles, leaders, and letters were hung, till the whole correspondence assumed voluminous proportions. The Cardiff telegraphists, from this realising a sense of their injustice, commenced agitating by meeting and petitions. They complained of the undermanning of the staff and consequent overworking; the insanitary condition of the office itself; the fact that Cardiff was one of the worst classified offices in the kingdom; that supervisors had to perform instrument work to the neglect of their proper duties; that they were punished for errors unavoidably due to lack of supervision; favouritism, non-payment of Sunday duty, and sundry minor grievances. In consequence of representations made by Sir John Reed, M.P., a revision took place, and most of the cause of complaint was removed. So far, so good. But a sequel was to come. In the following November, the Postmaster-General, Mr. Raikes, was announced to attend a Church Congress in the neighbourhood, and he telegraphed to a certain colonel at Llandaff, stating his intention to arrive at a certain time. Through the medium of the acting postmaster, so it was alleged, this piece of news found its way into the South Wales Daily News. The Postmaster-General on learning this took a very severe view of the case, and in consequence the official was compelled to retire from the service. While the Postmaster-General was in the Principality a number of the Cardiff staff requested him to receive an interview on the vexed question of Sunday work at that office. This resolve was communicated to several provincial offices, and the result was that some thirty telegrams were received, asking him to receive the deputation on the general question. The Postmaster-General promised the Cardiff staff that he would consider. Mr. Raikes, however, left the town early next morning, and the Cardiff men were left disappointed. Further, the various provincial offices, which had sent the telegrams in all good faith, were soon afterwards called on to apologise for their conduct. Appointments becoming due at the Cardiff office, eight of the men eligible were informed by the surveyor that they would receive the higher appointments only on the condition that they proved that they did not write the paragraph which had appeared in the Western Mail, complaining of the delay of telegrams. Failing this negative proof of their innocence, or their inability to name the person who made public what was now held to be a secret communication, the promotions would be withheld, and they would be transported. As this punishment of transportation to other distant towns where they were strangers meant the breaking-up of their homes, and the severance of family ties and friendly relationships, the telegraphists concerned felt they were the victims of injustice. They were informed that the transference would be made within eight hours; and in this short time were compelled to make what arrangement they could for the future, not even knowing to what distant part of the kingdom they would be severally deported. They, against whom nothing more than a suspicion rested of having communicated an innocent item of news, were actually transferred, with little time for leave-taking, next day. They were sent away to various offices. On the night that the first two were ordered away the staff held an impromptu meeting, and the places of the eight men who formed the secretaries and committee of the local branch of the association were filled up. But these officers were also, as soon as it was known, promptly given orders to hold themselves in readiness for transference. It has to be noted here, that Sunday pay was at the time an important item in the general programme, and these men at Cardiff had prepared to urge it strongly; for it was not till some months later that, through the instrumentality of Mr. Bradlaugh in the House of Commons, the question was settled in their favour.

The despotic treatment meted out to the Cardiff men induced Sir E. J. Reed, M.P., to take up their case in real earnest. For the supposed dereliction of duty they were to be penalised by the loss of a £25 increment, besides being packed off to unknown regions within a few hours. Besides Sir E. J. Reed, other influential public men took the matter up, and the case of the Cardiff “exiles” commanded some attention in the House. But the Postmaster-General was not to be moved by any argument, and contended that it was not intended as punishment, and was ultimately for the men’s own good. Yet while it had been stated that the men were transferred for no other reason than that of communicating this piece of information to the local paper, the First Lord of the Treasury, in reply to Mr. Hanbury in June 1888, distinctly stated that such communications could not be considered as an offence against departmental regulations. So that if Mr. Raikes’s treatment was not arbitrary, it was inconsistent. It was doubly inconsistent, seeing that a higher postal official, and not a telegraphist in the first instance, had been accused and made to leave the service for this so-called offence.

The case of the Cardiff “martyrs,” as they were called, produced a very strong feeling against the Postmaster-General amongst the telegraphists; and principally because of this they could not be induced to share that good opinion held of him by the sorters. And in truth it must be said that the Postmaster-General’s conduct towards both the letter-carriers and the telegraphists at this period contrasted somewhat strangely with the leniency and indulgence shown towards the sorting staff, and the facilities offered the latter for promoting a constitutional agitation. Certainly the sorters’ agitation was conducted with great caution and very little heat, while it has to be allowed that, however Mr. Raikes may have been convinced of the existence of grievances generally throughout the service, the over-zeal of the letter-carriers, and the importunities of the telegraphists in some quarters, may have caused him to draw invidious distinctions.

All the evidence and all the circumstances of the Cardiff case tend to show that Mr. Raikes, by some unaccountable means, was induced to commit an unworthy blunder, which helped to render him extremely unpopular with the telegraph service. The ebullition of feeling, openly and widely expressed by public meeting everywhere among the London and provincial telegraphists, and sympathetically reported by the press, so far convinced Mr. Raikes that he had made a mistake, that he afterwards modified his charge against the Cardiff men. This incident, in conjunction with other things, helped very considerably to tighten the sinews of the organisation. And in the meantime, while indignation at the inquisitorial treatment of their Cardiff brethren was at its height, the London telegraphists, who hitherto had been but loosely hanging on to the skirts of the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association, closed up their ranks, and on December 17, 1889, went over in a solid and enthusiastic body. Great was the rejoicing when the London men definitely joined hands with the provinces. The accession of 7500 Metropolitan men was certainly something to be jubilant over.

With the fresh reinforcements everywhere, the tide of indignation and dissatisfaction spread over the United Kingdom. For two months nearly, each day saw some expression of the feeling which had taken possession of the telegraph service, and some of the papers discerned all the preparations for an early strike among telegraphists everywhere. It became not a question of Cardiff particularly, but one in which the whole telegraph service was involved and identified with. From Land’s End to John o’ Groats there was an eruptive unrest; and the whole press of the country—Liberal and Tory, Radical and Independent—was kept busy in recording the utterances and commenting on the doings of telegraphists in meeting assembled everywhere. The Postmaster-General was inundated with a steady flow of petitions from every quarter; and besides being heckled from within the service and without, in the press and on the platform, Mr. Raikes experienced a very lively time of it in the House of Commons. There can be little doubt that during this busy and exciting period, with newspaper censure hurled at him from everywhere, and threats and prognostications of direful postal strikes filling the air, the Postmaster-General must have been far more severely punished than the victims of his mistake, the martyrs of Cardiff. This kind of thing lasted unceasingly till April 15, 1890, when the whole question of telegraphists’ grievances was ventilated in the House of Commons by Earl Compton. Earl Compton minutely traversed the ground of their grievances, and was ably supported; but Mr. Raikes defended his administration to the satisfaction of the House, and the motion was in due course lost by thirty-nine votes.

But although the telegraphists’ case was defeated, it was manifest that the matter could not long rest where it was. The feeling by this time was too strained and too acute to be allayed by an official refusal. All the dormant energies of the telegraphists were put forth, and grievances which had remained quiescent and unexpressed for years now loudly demanded redress and readjustment.