The Select Committee on Post Office Servants consists of: 4 Liberals, Messrs. Barker, Edwards, Hobhouse and Sutherland; 2 Conservatives, the Honorable Claude Hay and Sir Clement Hill; 2 Liberal and Labor Members, Messrs. John Ward and G. J. Wardle; and 1 Nationalist, Mr. P. A. Meechan.[249]
The reference to the Committee is: “to inquire into the wages and position of the principal classes of Post Office servants, and also of the unestablished postmasters. To examine, so far as may be necessary for the purpose of their Report, the conditions of employment of these classes. To report, whether, having regard to the conditions and prospects of their employment, and, as far as may be, to the standard rate of wages and the position of other classes of workers, the remuneration they receive is adequate or otherwise.”
In the spring of 1907, the Committee reported that it had not had time to perform its task, and asked for reappointment. The evidence thus far taken by the Committee had not been published at the date of this writing, March 20, 1907.
Lord Stanley Congratulated
Lord Stanley was one of the many Conservative candidates defeated in the General Election of January, 1906. When his defeat became known, hundreds of telegrams were showered upon him by postal and telegraph employees located in all parts of the United Kingdom. The telegram sent by Liverpool postal and telegraph employees was typical of the lot. It congratulated Lord Stanley upon his retirement to private life, and assured him that the senders at all times would do all in their power to make the retirement a permanent one.
FOOTNOTES:
[225] The Times, September 19, 1904.
[226] The apparent net profits of the Post Office Department average about $18,500,000 a year. Those profits are subject to the correction that the Post Office does not charge itself with interest and depreciation upon its capital investment, which cannot be ascertained, but must be very large.
[227] Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, March 10, 1890, p. 342. Mr. McCartan asks the Postmaster General “on what grounds Messrs. C. Hughes and C. H. Garland were recently punished.” … The intervention was repeated on March 14, p. 865.