Only a few days after this the postal clerks were given a still more serious cause for complaint by the manner in which some of the officials of their organisation were slighted in the matter of promotion ordinarily due to them. Mr. Henry Labouchere put forward the question in the House of Commons, April 25. The chairman and secretary of the Liverpool branch of the Postal Clerks’ Association, Messrs. Thompson and Lucas, were, it appears, unjustly superseded in promotion by junior men. The fact in itself was not so unheard of in the service as to call for public comment; but the circumstances suggested that these officers had been so treated because of their connection with the association of their class. The Postmaster-General in the previous March had given an undertaking in the House of Commons that connection with an association or union should not detrimentally affect any officer’s official career; yet in face of that assurance this seemed as clear a case of intimidation as that of Cardiff. The Postmaster-General denied that their being officers of that union had anything to do with their treatment, and maintained that their position in this respect was neither known to himself nor taken into account. Possibly it was so, so far as he himself was concerned, for at this period, with the bewildering number of claims and counter-claims put forward from a thousand points at once, the Postmaster-General had necessarily to trust very largely to the permanent advisers for information, and doubtless even for guidance to a ruling in some cases.

Although at this time represented by two distinct associations, there appeared to be much in common between the Metropolitan sorters and the provincial sorting clerks. Their entrance into the service, the similarity of their pay prospects, and the character of their duties, entitled the London sorters to class themselves with their provincial brethren. They had urged that they were in reality sorting clerks, and were referred to as such by Mr. Fawcett in his 1881 scheme. But it was just on this point that the “Luminous Committee” settled the whole matter against them. The equality that existed between the provincial sorting clerks and the provincial telegraphists, it was thought, should find an analogue in the Metropolitan telegraphists and sorters, and that was the whole ground of the difference, as already reviewed. Still if there were not equality in one case, there was in another, for except in title the pay and prospects and conditions of sorting clerks and sorters were almost identical; while their grievances were, except on the enforced Sunday duty question, also similar. Seeing there was so much in common between these two bodies, it would therefore not have been surprising had they made common cause for the purpose of getting their grievances redressed on a similar basis. It was not so, however, and the connection between them never went beyond a friendly intercourse, and the ordinary amenities of unionism. There was, however, a journal started at this period in Birmingham, intended mainly for circulation among sorting clerks, but to which Metropolitan men were invited to contribute. The sorters already had the Post, which had now become the property of the association; but the new Postal Review was taken up with some enthusiasm among them. The Postal Review might have become a permanent link of friendly connection, and a handy vehicle for the intercommunication of ideas leading to more important results perhaps, but for a slip that occurred. At the inaugural meeting of the Fawcett Association, 10th February 1890, a leaflet was distributed having for its object the promotion of the sale of this monthly journal, and two of the sorters were advertised as its wholesale and retail agents for the London postal service. The leaflet, after announcing that the Postal Review had over 300 contributors in different parts of the country, representing so many distinct offices, referred to many of these contributors as “being in confidential positions, and having access to the most important and valuable information, which,” the leaflet went on to say, “when occasion arises or exigencies demand, will be laid before the readers of the Postal Review.” The leaflet in question, so far from carrying out its purpose, was the means of abruptly breaking off negotiations with the provinces; for there was an immediate official inquiry, and the two sorters whose names were mentioned as agents were promptly called on to repudiate all connection with its publication. The matter became the subject for special reference in the Post-Office Circular, and the two innocent men who had inadvertently allowed their names to be printed on the incriminating leaflet, were made to thus publicly renounce connection with it and to disavow all implication in the heinous design set forth.

After that the two organisations went their separate ways, and they were not to meet again for some years afterwards. But though they went their separate ways it was always in the same direction and along almost parallel roads, and often so near to each other that they could occasionally catch the glimpse of their raised banners as they marched towards the common goal.

CHAPTER XIX

THE AFTER EFFECTS OF THE POSTMEN’S STRIKE—THE RAIKES SCHEME—FRESH DISSATISFACTION—AN ESTIMATE OF MR. RAIKES.

If Mr. Raikes’ cautious nature made him slow to convince, he nevertheless at last came to realise that the rampant discontent throughout his domain called for some effective remedy other than coercion. It was not only the continual heckling in the House, or the numerous public meetings of postal servants themselves; but, as Sir John Puleston, M.P., himself a personal friend of Mr. Raikes, pointed out to the telegraphists at the Foresters’ Hall meeting at which he presided, the Postmaster-General was himself inwardly convinced that there were defects in the postal service which called for a speedy and effective remedy. But while the continuance of postal agitation everywhere must have hastened the conviction that something was radically wrong, it somewhat retarded the application of the remedy.

In the case of the sorters’ agitation, an inter-departmental inquiry, known as the “Luminous Committee,” sat to decide on the merits of their claim, and in the case of the telegraphists particularly a committee of officials investigated and reported on their grievances. But it was impossible owing to the eruptive state of the service, and the enormous amount of responsibility and detail work involved, to settle all these conflicting claims spontaneously and immediately. The after effects of the postmen’s strike fully occupied Mr. Raikes for some months. Another man perhaps would have made lighter work of it, and allowed the regrettable incident to drop into oblivion. Not so Mr. Raikes. Physically run down as he was with the strain of his great responsibilities and the stupendous load of work this trying time brought him, even when he should have sought a holiday, he decided to do all that was consistent with his dignity as a minister to repair the losses to the penitent postmen. He early received a deputation of their body, and promised that he would carefully weigh every extenuating circumstance which could be urged on behalf of each individual of the strikers. This same assurance he gave to the House of Commons during the debate on the Post-Office Vote, July 23; and despite the warning of his medical adviser, immediately set to work to redeem a promise which meant so much to so many. He left England for a short holiday at Royat, but it was a holiday full of work for him; for the voluminous papers in connection with the postmen followed him daily. There is no reason to think that his inquiry into each painful case was not as conscientious as he promised it should be, but some doubt seems to have been raised by Mr. Pickersgill, M.P., and some correspondence was published between them. The Postmaster-General mentioned that he had devoted one whole week unceasingly to investigating and comparing all the appeal letters and reports bearing on each particular case, “with the earnest desire of finding grounds which might in any individual instance warrant a mitigation of the punishment which all the men had been warned must follow such an offence.” In the result somewhere about fifty were restored to duty shortly afterwards, and several others, by the further influence of members of Parliament, were one by one reinstated.

These were certainly the most serious but not the only matters occupying the Postmaster-General’s time and attention. For almost side by side with his investigations into these cases, and while he was meeting other troubles, he was preparing a scheme for revising the scales of pay of sorters, sorting clerks, and telegraphists, in accordance with his earlier promise. After the adverse decision of the “Luminous Committee” he had been prevailed to see another deputation of the sorting force in June, when once more the whole ground of their claims in regard to improved pay, holidays, compulsory extra duty, split attendance, &c., &c., was carefully gone over and considered point by point by himself and the official advisers. Partly as the result of those investigations, and partly as the result of evidence gathered from other quarters as to the position and prospects of sorting clerks and telegraphists, on November 11, 1890, the long-waited-for scheme appeared. It must, however, be mentioned that the telegraphists’ portion of the scheme had appeared in the previous July.