Evidence, in 1888, as to Civil Service Pressure
The Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1888, took up at some length, the question of the pressure brought by the civil servants upon the House of Commons for increases of wages and salaries. Before that Commission, Sir Reginald E. Welby, who had entered the Treasury in 1856, had become Assistant Financial Secretary in 1880, and had been made Permanent Secretary to the Treasury in 1885, testified that many Members of the House of Commons had recently attended meetings of the civil servants for the purpose of endorsing the claims of the civil servants for increases of pay; and that they had taken that action without having made a close examination of the grounds upon which the civil servants had put forward their claims. He added: “It is utterly impossible for us [the Treasury] to ignore these symptoms that make it very difficult to keep within reasonable bounds the remuneration of such a body.” Thereupon one of the members of the Royal Commission said to Sir R. Welby: “…but are you not aware that there is a general feeling throughout the country among the people who are employed by private individuals and public bodies [other than the State], that Government servants receive higher pay than they do, and that when these persons are called upon to exercise the franchise they bring pressure to bear upon their Members just the other way [i. e., against the increase of government wages and salaries]?” Sir R. Welby replied: “Of course, I have no means of testing that. I am very glad to hear that Parliamentary influence is not all in one direction. We do not see the proof of it at the Treasury.”[140]
Sir Algernon E. West, Chairman Inland Revenue Commissioners,[141] said he wished for a greater spirit of economy, “not in the offices so much as outside.” Thereupon the Chairman of the Royal Commission said: “I do not quite understand what you mean by outside.” Sir Algernon E. West replied: “I say it with all possible deference, particularly Parliament.” To the further query: “Has there been on the part of Members of Parliament, an increase of intervention on behalf either of the individual officers of the Inland Revenue or on behalf of classes of the Inland Revenue since the enfranchisement in 1869?” Sir A. West replied: “A large increase on behalf of classes, not of individuals…. I should like to add … that I think last year the Lower Division clerks succeeded in getting two hundred Members of Parliament to attend a meeting which was held to protest against their grievances.”[142]
Sir Lyon Playfair, who had been Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, 1874 to 1876, and the author of the Playfair Reorganization of the Civil Service, 1876, testified as follows before the Royal Commission of 1888. “Unfortunately Members of Parliament yield to pressure a great deal too much in that direction, and they are certainly pressing the Exchequer to increase the wages and salaries of the employees of the Crown…. In a private establishment a man looks after his own interests, and if a person came to him and said: ‘Now you must increase the salaries of these men by $100 or $250 all round,’ he would say: ‘You are an impertinent man, you have no business to interfere,’ but you cannot say that to Members of Parliament, and there is continual pressure from Members of Parliament to augment the salaries of the civil servants.”[143]
Raikes Revision of 1890-91
With the increase of the number of telegraphic messages transmitted, from 33,278,000 in 1884-85, to 62,403,000 in 1889-90, the average sum spent on wages and salaries per message transmitted, fell from 13.72 cents in 1884-85, to 10.62 cents in 1889-90. In the following year, 1890-91, Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, inaugurated an extensive scheme of increases in wages, reductions in the hours of work, and other “improvements in the condition” of the telegraph employees, that again raised to 12.28 cents per message in 1894-95, the average sum spent on wages and salaries. Mr. Raikes, Postmaster General, raised the wages of the supervising staff, as well as the wages of the rank and file;[144] he granted payment at one and one-quarter rates for over time, granted payment at double rates for all work done on Sunday, gave extra pay for work done on Bank Holidays, and increased from half pay to full pay the sick-leave allowance. The annual cost of those concessions Mr. Raikes estimated at $500,000 a year. The cost of the concessions granted at the same time to the employees in the postal branch of the Post Office Department, he estimated at $535,000 a year.[145]
Mr. Raikes’ schemes were based largely upon the Report of Committee of the Indoor Staff. That Report has not been published; but in 1896, Mr. Lewin Hill, Assistant Secretary General Post Office, London, stated before the so-called Tweedmouth Committee,[146] that the majority of the committee on the Indoor Staff had signed the Report because they believed that if the concessions recommended in the Report were granted, “that would be the end of all agitation.” Mr. Hill added: “I remember myself saying [to the Committee] whatever else happens, that will not happen. Do not delude yourselves with the notion that the men will cease to ask.” He continued: “Mr. Raikes’ improvements were received with the greatest gratitude, and there were any number of letters of thanks from the staff; but the ink was scarcely dry when the demands began again, and they have been going on ever since, and will go on…. There is, unfortunately, a growing habit among the main body of Post Office servants to use their voting power at elections to get higher pay for themselves, and it is well known that in constituencies in which political parties are at all evenly balanced, the Post Office servants can turn the election.”
Earl Compton demands a Select Committee
The Committee on the Indoor Staff appointed by Mr. Raikes in March, 1890, had not had the approval of the rank and file of the civil servants, nor had it had the approval of the representatives of the civil servants in the House of Commons, on the ground that it consisted of government officials, who were not responsible directly to the voters. Therefore one of the leading representatives in the House of Commons of the Post Office employees, Earl Compton,[147] on April 15, 1890, had moved: “That, in the opinion of the House, the present position of the telegraphists in London and elsewhere is unsatisfactory, and their just grievances require redress.”[148] In the course of his argument, Earl Compton said: “Perhaps the Right Honorable Gentleman [the Postmaster General] has been cramped [in the administration of his department] by what is called officialism. In that case, if the present motion is passed, the Right Honorable Gentleman’s hands will be strengthened [against his permanent officials], and he will be able to redress the grievances which have been brought under his attention.”