In 1881, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, established for Metropolitan London the class of “senior telegraphists,” with a salary rising by annual increments of $40, from $800 to $950. He intended that this class should be filled by the promotion of men from the first class of telegraphists who possessed exceptional manipulative efficiency as well as sufficient executive ability to act as assistants to the assistant superintendents. But as a matter of fact many men were promoted to this class by mere seniority and without reference to their qualifications. In 1890, however, under Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, the Department resolved to promote to the senior class no more men who were not fully qualified.[369] And in 1894, the Department imposed a technical examination[370] between the first class of telegraphists and the senior class, in order to insure that all men promoted to the senior class should have the qualifications required of them. Mr. H. C. Fischer, Controller of the London Central Telegraph Office, said of this examination: “It is not considered unjust that this should have been enforced in the case of men who had always been employed on instrument duties, and who had only themselves to blame if they neglected to acquire some knowledge of technical matters, which all skilled telegraphists are expected to possess…. Even before the institution of the examination it was always held that the possession of technical knowledge gave the man an additional claim to promotion to the senior class.”[371]
Before the Tweedmouth Committee the representatives of the first class telegraphists complained of the technical examination as a “grievance.” They said: “The regulation came into operation at once, an act which is regarded as exceptionally unjust toward men of more than 20 years’ service, who, up to that time had understood from the general practice of the Department, that, other things being equal, good conduct and manipulative efficiency would secure promotion. Now, however, the possession of technical knowledge is added as a necessary qualification before promotion to the senior class, and this without a coincident rise in the maximum [salary] of the first class as compensation for the additional demand upon the capacity of the staff.” As the alternative to the raising of the maximum salary of the first class [$800], “it was earnestly contended that the scale to which the officer is raised on passing the examination should be materially enhanced [beyond the present maximum of $950] in recompense for the further additional demand upon his time, and for his pecuniary outlay in preparing himself for the requirements of the Department.”[372]
Prior to November, 1886, special intelligence was required of the sorters of foreign letters in the London Central Post Office, who were correspondingly well paid. The wages of the first class of sorters of foreign letters began at $13.75 a week, and rose to $17.50, by triennial increments of $1.25 a week. Those of the second class began at $11.25, and rose to $13.75, by annual increments of $0.50 a week. But in consequence of a material simplification of the duties of the foreign letter sorters, consequent upon the changes in the international postage charges, the Department resolved, in November, 1886, to replace the two classes of sorters of foreign letters by one class, with wages ranging from $12.50 a week to $15.[373] It was provided, however, that the existing sorters of the first class should retain the old scale of wages; and that the existing sorters of the second class should have the option of immediate promotion to the new class, with wages rising from $12.50 to $15, or, “of being advanced to the $13.75 to $17.50 scale, in the order in which they would have attained to that scale if the old first class scale had not been abolished.” In other words, the men who, prior to November, 1886, had been in line for ultimate promotion to a class carrying wages of $13.75 to $17.50, were offered the option “of being regarded as having a vested interest to rise to $17.50 a week, as vacancies should occur.”[374]
Claim of Exemption from Vicissitudes of Life
In 1895, Mr. H. B. Irons, a second class sorter in London, appeared before the Tweedmouth Committee to present the grievance of himself and colleagues, who, prior to 1886, had given up the position of first class letter carriers to become second class letter sorters in order to improve their prospects of promotion. The grievance was that the prospects of promotion of letter sorters had been curtailed by the abolition of the sorterships of foreign letters in 1886, and the abolition of the sortership of the first class of inland and foreign newspapers in 1890. Mr. Irons alleged that he would have remained a letter carrier had he foreseen the changes in question.[375] His argument was that the civil servant must be exempt from the ordinary chances and vicissitudes of life.
In 1890 some senior telegraphists protested that they ought to be made assistant superintendents, alleging that they were performing the duties of assistant superintendents. Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, found that some of the duties of the complainants were of the nature alleged, but not all of them. Therefore, he made the complainants, forty-nine in number, second class assistant superintendents. By 1896, this new class had come to number sixty-five.
From 1881 to 1890, the proportion borne by the senior telegraphists to the first class and second class telegraphists had ranged between 1 to 6.6 and 1 to 7.7. The promotion of forty-nine senior telegraphists in 1890, and of the others in subsequent years, raised the proportion in question to 1 to 10, in 1895. But counting senior telegraphists and second class assistant superintendents, there was, in 1895, one of these superior officers to each 6.5 of first class and second class telegraphists. In other words, the rate of promotion of first class and second class telegraphists to appointments superior to the first class of telegraphists, but inferior to the position of assistant superintendent, had been more rapid in 1891 to 1895, than it had been in 1881 to 1890.
In 1895, Mr. Nicholson, Chairman London Branch of the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association, appeared before the Tweedmouth Committee to voice the grievance of the first class and second class telegraphists, which was, that the rate of promotion from the second class and first class had decreased, as shown by the fact that there was only one senior telegraphist to each ten first class and second class telegraphists. Mr. Nicholson contended that the increase of telegraphic messages consequent upon the introduction of the charge of 12 cents for 12 words had necessitated the creation of a new class, the second class superintendents; and that the first class and second class telegraphists had a right to demand that they should derive benefit from that increase of traffic and that necessity of creating a new class of officers. That the Department’s failure to fill the vacancies created in the senior class of telegraphists by promotions to the class of second class superintendents, had deprived the first class and second class telegraphists of all advantage arising out of the creation of a new class of officers, the second class assistant superintendents.[376]