Mr. Macdonald’s Motion was lost.
Mr. Kearley demands a Select Committee
In May, 1895, Mr. Kearley[159] moved: “That in the opinion of this House, it is highly desirable that the terms and conditions of employment in the Post Office should be made the subject of competent and immediate inquiry, with a view to the removal of any reasonable cause of complaint which may be found to exist.”[160] The Motion was seconded by Sir Albert K. Rollit.[161] Mr. Kearley stated at the outset, that his remarks would be directed to the advisability of granting some inquiry. He was not in a position to assert that any particular alleged grievance really existed as stated by the employees; but there could be no doubt that there was general discontent. Mr. Kearley next stated that the most serious grievance alleged by the Post Office employees was inadequacy of pay arising from stagnation of promotion. It was true that at the time the blocking extended only to the more highly paid portions of the rank and file, but it must soon extend to the general body of employees unless relief were afforded. In 1880, and in 1890, Parliament had sanctioned respectively the Fawcett revision of wages, and the Raikes revision, for the purpose of correcting inadequacies of pay arising from stagnation of promotion. The employees now demanded the abolition of the classes into which were divided the various grades of the rank and file of the Post Office employees; they demanded assured promotion to a definite maximum wage or salary.
That demand rested on the assumption that the employees had a vested right to the rate of promotion that had obtained under the extraordinary increase of telegraphic business that had followed the transfer of the telegraphs to the State in 1870, and had followed the adoption of the 12 cent tariff in October, 1885.[162]
Mr. Kearley supported his argument by reference to the telegraphists, who enter the service between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, as second class telegraphists, and in the course of fourteen years rise by annual increments from the wage of $3 a week to $10 a week. At the latter wage they remain, unless they are promoted to be first class telegraphists, whose wages rise by annual increments, from $10 a week to $14 a week—payment for over-time, and so forth, being excluded in all cases. Mr. Kearley argued that promotion from the second class to the first class was blocked, stating that in Birmingham, in the last 4¾ years, only 11 men in 168 had been promoted from second class telegraphists to first class telegraphists; and that in Belfast and Edinburgh the annual rate of promotion had been respectively 1.14 per cent. and 2 per cent. Those instances, said the speaker, were typical of the larger cities; the conditions in the smaller cities and in the towns being still worse.
Mr. Arnold Morley, Postmaster General, replied to this part of Mr. Kearley’s argument with the statement that there were in London and in the Provinces 3,308 second class male telegraphists, and that out of that number only 65 were both eligible for promotion and in receipt of the maximum wage of the second class, namely $10 a week. He added that the average wage of the men telegraphists who had been promoted from the second class to the first in 1894 had been $8.46. That meant that, on an average, the men in question had been promoted three years before they had reached the maximum wage of the second class. The Postmaster General characterized as “extraordinarlyextraordinarily misleading” the source from which Mr. Kearley had taken his statements of fact, namely, a table in a pamphlet issued by the telegraphists in support of their contention that promotion was blocked. The compilers of the table had left out promotions “due to causes other than what were termed ordinary causes, namely promotions due to appointments to postmasterships and chief clerkships, to transfers from provincial offices to the central office in London, and to reductions of officers on account of misconduct.” Thus at Birmingham there had been, not 11 promotions, but 16; at Liverpool, not 8, but 37; at Belfast, not 4, but 14; at Newcastle, not 5, but 24; at Bristol, not 6, but 13; at Southampton, not 2, but 8.
The second alleged grievance brought forward by Mr. Kearley related to the so-called auxiliary staff, which consisted of men who supplemented their earnings in private employment by working for the Post Office in the mail branch. It was stated that the Post Office was paying the auxiliary staff from $3.75 to $4.00 a week, whereas it should pay at least $6.00 a week. The third grievance related to the so-called split duties, which involved in the course of the 24 hours of the day more than one attendance at the office. The abolition of those duties was demanded. The fourth grievance was that some of the younger employees were obliged to take their annual three weeks’ vacation [on full pay] in the months of November to February.
Sir Albert Rollit,[163] in seconding the motion, termed “reasonable” the demand of the telegraphists that the wages of the London telegraphists should rise automatically to $1,150 a year; and those of the provincial telegraphists to $1,000 a year. At the time the maximum wage attainable in London was $950, while the maximum attainable in the provinces was $800. Sir Albert Rollit added that the recent order of the Post Office that first class telegraphists must pass certain technical examinations or forego further promotion and further increments in pay, “amounted almost to tyranny,” and he further reflected that “where law ended, tyranny began.” Sir Albert Rollit, an eminent merchant and capitalist, contended that when the existing body of telegraphists had entered the service, no knowledge of the technics of telegraphy had been required, and that therefore it would be a breach of contract to require the present staff to acquire such knowledge unless it were specifically paid for going to the trouble of acquiring such knowledge. That contention of Sir Albert Rollit was but one of many instances of the extraordinary doctrine of “vested rights” developed by the British Civil Service, and recognized by the British Government, namely, that the State may make no changes in the terms and conditions of employment, unless it shall indemnify by money payments the persons affected by the changes. If the State shall be unwilling to make such indemnification, the changes in the terms and conditions of employment must be made to apply only to persons who shall enter the service in the future; they may not be made to apply to those already in the service. This doctrine is supported in the House of Commons by eminent merchants, manufacturers and capitalists. Sir Albert K. Rollit, for instance, is a steamship owner at Hull, Newcastle and London; a Director of the National Telephone Company, and he has held for six years and five years respectively the positions of President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom and President of the London Chamber of Commerce.
When Sir Albert Rollit argued that the Government had broken faith with the telegraphers, those public servants, acting under instructions from their leaders, were neglecting to avail themselves of their opportunities to learn the elementary scientific principles underlying telegraphy, and were even repudiating the obligation to acquire knowledge of those principles. The state of affairs was such that the Engineer-in-Chief of the Telegraphs, Mr. W. H. Preece, began to fear that before long he would be unable to fill the positions requiring an elementary knowledge of the technics of telegraphy.[164]
Mr. Arnold Morley, Postmaster General, began his reply to Mr. Kearley’s Motion with the statement that “he understood the mover of the Motion spoke on behalf of those in the Post Office service who had taken an active part in the promoting what he might call an agitation, and that his [Mr. Kearley’s] position was that, in the condition of feeling in the service, some steps ought to be taken which would enable the real facts to be brought not only before the public, but before Parliament….” He [Mr. Morley] had made a careful examination of most of the alleged grievances during the three years he had been at the Post Office, and though he had satisfied himself that in the main they were not well founded, he recognized that a very strong feeling existed not only among a portion of the staff, but also among the public, and among Members of the House.