M. P.’s and the Rank and File
In 1888, Mr. Harvey, a Member of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments, asked Sir S. A. Blackwood, Secretary to the Post Office since 1880: “Now I should like to ask you … whether you consider there is a distinct tendency among the clerical establishments [i. e., the clerks above the rank and file], especially the lower division clerks, to develop what for want of a better term I will call trades union spirit?” “Yes, I believe there is a good deal of evidence of that.” “Have you, yourself, found it difficult to deal with that; is it a factor in your administration [of the Post Office]?” “Not with regard to the lower division clerks [above the rank and file]; it is with regard to the subordinate ranks of the service, the rank and file; amongst them there is a very strong tendency in that direction.” “A growing tendency?” “It is certainly growing.” “A growing tendency then we may say to introduce the coöperation of Members of Parliament to deal with individual grievances?” “A very strongly growing tendency.” At this point Mr. Lawson interrupted: “Individual or class grievances?” “Class grievances, but there are a great many instances in which individual grievances are brought forward [by Members of Parliament].” “The point of the question was whether this spirit of trades unionism was evoked for the sake of bringing forward individual grievances, and you said yes; and then I asked whether it was class grievances or individual grievances?” “I mean class grievances, but it is made use of in respect of individual grievances.” Mr. Harvey resumed: “And you think it is growing?” “I think it is strongly growing.” “So we may say, to repeat the question I put just now, that it makes a factor in your administration of the Post Office, and you have always to be prepared to meet this growing tendency?” “It is continuously raising difficulties, and very serious ones.”
Mr. Lawson queried: “You said something about trades unionism; do you think it is possible by any regulation to stop trades unionism of a great class such as the senior division, or the classes which are the subordinate part of your establishment?” “I think it would be very difficult.” “You would have to reckon with that as a permanent factor?” “Yes.”[329]
This intervention on behalf of individual employees is managed as follows. Members of Parliament first interview the Postmaster General; if they fail to obtain satisfaction, they bring the grievance of their constituent before the House of Commons, by means of a question addressed in the House to the Postmaster General. It will be remembered that Mr. Hanbury, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in 1900 stated that he had agreed to represent the Postmaster General in the House of Commons only on condition that he should be given full freedom to answer such questions in any way he saw fit, and that he should not be bound by any answers furnished him either by the permanent officers of the Post Office or by the Postmaster General. And that Sir H. H. Fowler protested against the Postmaster General sitting in the House of Lords, on the ground that the questions asked by Members of the House of Commons often demanded to be answered by a man who had his finger on the pulse of the House, and was able to cut through the red tape of officialism on public grounds, which meant, to set aside the rules of the Department in response to the exigencies of political expediency.
If the answer given by the Postmaster General is unsatisfactory, the Member of Parliament gives notice that he will bring the matter up again on the discussion of the Estimates of Expenditure. In the meantime he brings to bear, behind the scenes, what pressure he can command. And he often learns to appreciate the grim humor of the reply once given by a former Minister of Railways in Victoria, Australia, to a Victorian Royal Commission, to the query whether political influence was exercised in the administration of the State railways of Victoria. The reply had been: “I should like to know how you can have a politician without political influence?”
Of course not all cases of intervention by Members of Parliament are as successful as was the intervention of Mr. Bradlaugh, which resulted in the promotion of eleven men out of fourteen who had been passed over as “not qualified for promotion,” or, as was the intervention of the Member of Parliament whose name was not revealed, which brought about the revocation of the promotion of the ablest man in the Post Office at Sheffield. Indeed, the principal effect of these interventions is not to force the Post Office to retrace steps already taken, it is to prevent the Post Office from taking certain steps. These interventions modify the entire administration of the British Post Office. They compel the Postmaster General and his leading officers to consider the political aspect of every proposal coming from the local postmasters, and other intermediate officers, be it a proposal to promote, to pass over, to discipline, or to dismiss. It was this possibility of intervention by Members of Parliament, acting under pressure from civil servants’ unions, that gave the late Mr. Fawcett “a perfect horror of passing over,” that caused Mr. Arnold Morley “the greatest distress” whenever he had to pass anyone over, and that led Mr. Raikes to state in the House of Commons, that, “in the interests of the Public Service, and especially in the interests of the Post Office itself,” he had declined to follow the advice of his officers that he promote a certain clerk in the Secretary’s Office; as well as that he made it his practice to try to mitigate the rules of the Department governing punishment and dismissal. It was with the thought of Parliamentary intervention in mind, that Mr. Austen Chamberlain,[330] Postmaster General, said, in February, 1903: “The selection of officers for promotion is always an invidious task.”
Typical Grievances
The testimony given before the Tweedmouth Committee, 1897, contains a number of incidents which show how leniently the Post Office Department is obliged to deal with men who violate the rules. These incidents were brought before the Committee by the representatives of the employees of the Post Office, for the purpose of proving by individual cases, that the Department’s rulings were unduly severe, and afforded just cause for grievance.
One Webster, a letter carrier at Liverpool, in July, 1883, failed to cover his whole walk, and brought back to the office, letters which he should have delivered. These letters he surreptitiously inserted among the letters of other carriers. Mr. Herbert Joyce, Third Secretary to General Post Office, said dismissal would not have been harsh punishment for the offence; but Webster was merely deprived of one good conduct stripe, worth 25 cents a week. In 1884 and 1885 Webster’s increment of salary was arrested for unsatisfactory conduct. In July, 1886, Webster was removed from his walk, and reduced to the “junior men” on the “relief force,” for having been under the influence of drink while on duty. In 1890, Webster complained to headquarters of harsh treatment, stating that though he had served 15 years, he had not received three good conduct stripes. And in 1896, Mr. J. S. Smith, the official representative of the provincial postmen, deemed it expedient to cite the case to the Tweedmouth Committee in the course of an argument to the effect that there was too great a difference “between the punishment meted out to postmen and the punishment meted out to sorters; not that I say the punishment is too slight for sorters, but it is, I might say, too severe for postmen,” It may be added that, in 1896, Webster was recommended for three good conduct stripes, though the regulation says that a good conduct stripe shall be awarded only for five clear and consecutive years of good conduct. Non-observance of that regulation led the Tweedmouth Committee to report: “The practice which has grown up in the Department of awarding two stripes at the same time to a man whose service exceeds 10 years, but whose unblemished service extends over only 5 years, is, we think, a bad one, and should be discontinued.”[331]