On April 27, 1900, Mr. Steadman moved the reduction of the Postmaster General’s salary by $2,500.[193] He said: “I rise for the purpose of advocating the claims of the 160,000 persons employed in the Post Office for a fair and impartial Committee of Inquiry to be elected by this House to look into their grievances.”
The contention that there were grievances, Mr. Steadman supported with the following arguments. From 1881 to 1891, the Civil Service Commissioners, in issuing notices that they would hold competitive examinations for intending entrants into the telegraph service, had stated that in London telegraphists had “a prospect of obtaining [ultimately] $950 a year.” That, argued Mr. Steadman, was a contract between the Government and the telegraphists who entered the London service between 1881 and 1891, that every such telegraphist should rise to $950. The Government therefore had committed a breach of contract when, in 1892, it had announced that good character and good skill as an operator would not secure a telegraphist promotion to the senior class, in which the salary rose from $800 a year to $950. To be eligible for promotion to the senior class, a man must be not only an excellent telegraphist, but must, in addition, possess such executive ability as would enable him to act as an overseer, or as assistant to the Assistant Superintendent.
Mr. Steadman continued: “Now I come to the question of the postmen. Goodness knows where all that $1,950,000 a year has gone to. You cannot get away from the fact that the postman to-day in London commences [at the age of 16 years to 18 years] with a minimum wage of $4.50 a week…. Fancy that, Mr. Chairman, a man commencing on $4.50 a week, and employed by the State in a Department that has a clean profit of between $15,000,000 and $20,000,000.” Mr. Steadman next contended that a good conduct stripe—worth $13 a year—should be given every three years; that the present period of five years was too long. Moreover, the Department was altogether too rigorous in withholding good conduct stripes for breaches of discipline. Mr. Steadman cited the following instances to prove the necessity of an inquiry by Members of the House of Commons into the discipline enforced by the Department. A man who had served nine years as an auxiliary postman had been arrested on the charge of stealing a postal money order. Though found not guilty by the Court, he had been dismissed, without a certificate of good character. Postman Taylor, of Stirling, after suffering an accident, was unable to cover his route in the time fixed by the Post Office. Thereupon the local postmaster had asked Taylor to retire on a pension. “The latest information that I have in regard to that case is that the man who is now doing Taylor’s duties, in order to get through his round in the time allotted, has his son to help him.” Again, the annual increment had been withheld from one Lacon, a telegraphist at Birmingham, and the local Secretary of the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association. The Secretary to the Treasury, Mr. Hanbury, had told Mr. Steadman that the Superintendent at Birmingham reported that Lacon’s increment had been withheld because Lacon had been insubordinate while on duty. Lacon had told Mr. Steadman that he had been disciplined because of his connection with the union. Mr. Steadman added: “I will not for one moment attempt to stand up in the House and attack permanent officials who are not able to defend themselves; it would be unmanly for me to do so. But I do say that I have as much right to believe the statement of Lacon, as the Right Honorable Gentleman [the Secretary to the Treasury] has to believe the statement of the Birmingham Superintendent. There is only one way of proving these cases, and that is for a Committee of impartial Members of this House to be appointed before which the permanent official can state his case and the men theirs. If that is done, the Members, if their minds are unbiassedunbiased, will very soon be able to judge as to who is telling the truth.”
Commons reminded of Civil Servants’ votes
Sir Albert Rollit seconded Mr. Steadman’s Motion, saying: “and we ought not to overlook the fact, that, rightly or wrongly, these men now have votes, and if they cannot obtain redress for their grievances here in the House of Commons, they will try to obtain it from our masters, the electorate.”
Mr. R. W. Hanbury, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and representative in the House of Commons of the Postmaster General, the Duke of Norfolk, “on principle” opposed the request for a Select Committee. “Well, I say that the House of Commons is the last body which ought to interfere in these questions of the payment of our public servants. It is the last body which ought to be appealed to as regularly as it is by civil servants to raise their salaries, because that, after all, is the real object of this proposed committee. Already I think the pressure brought to bear on individual Members, and especially on Members who have a large number of civil servants in their constituencies, has become perfectly intolerable, and civil servants may depend upon it that it is the general opinion in this House, although they may have their cause advocated by Members upon whom they may be able to bring particular pressure, because large numbers of them happen to live in the constituencies of those Members; I repeat that they may depend upon it that in the opinion of the great body of the Members of this House they are taking a highly irregular course, and are in no way making their position more favorable in the minds of the great majority of Members. Nothing will induce me personally to agree to any committee such as has been suggested. And while I object on principle, I object also because absolutely no necessity has been shown for the committee…. The Duke of Norfolk and I, because we were so desirous that no case of the slightest grievance should be left untouched, inquired into every grievance which was said to have been left unredressed by the Tweedmouth Committee…. Every Member of the House had a right to attend our [Norfolk-Hanbury Committee] meetings, and to cross-examine the witnesses…. It is the intention of the Post Office and of the Treasury to carry out the recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee to the very fullest extent, and if the honorable Member [Mr. Steadman] is able to show me any case whatever in which that has not been done, even in the case of an individual postman, or sorter, or telegraphist, I will go into it myself, and I will do more: I will promise that the grievance shall be redressed.”
Mr. Steadman’s Motion was lost by a vote of 66 to 46. It was supported by forty-one members of the Opposition and by four supporters of the Government.[194]
On June 7, 1901, while the House of Commons was in Committee of Supply, Mr. Thomas Bayley[195] asked for a Select Committee of the House of Commons to investigate the grievance of the Post Office servants.[196] He said: “This House shows a want of moral courage by throwing the responsibility for redressing the grievance of the Post Office servants on the other House [Lord Tweedmouth] or the permanent officials of any Department whatsoever.” Mr. Bayley had begun his political career as a Town Councillor in Nottingham.
The Prime Minister’s Anxiety