Before the Tweedmouth Committee, Mr. F. T. Crosse, a sorting clerk at Bristol, and one of the spokesmen of the Post Office employees, said: “Macdougall, Liverpool, a second class sorting clerk, was promoted to the first class over the heads of 14 men, his seniors. Mr. Bradlaugh, M. P., brought the matter up in Parliament during the discussion on the Estimates. The result of Mr. Bradlaugh’s intervention was that 11 of the 14 men passed over were promoted in a batch six months later.”
Mr. Joyce, Third Secretary to General Post Office, London, said it was true that “very soon afterward,” 11 of the 14 men were promoted.[300] “A great point was stretched” in favor of 5 of the 11 men. Those 5 men were technically called single duty men, and since 1881 no sorting clerk had been promoted to the first class [at Liverpool] who could not perform dual duty. Although these five men were single duty men, and therefore unable to rotate with others, which was a “great disability,” they were promoted by reason of Mr. Bradlaugh’s intervention.
In explanation of the Bradlaugh episode, it should be added, that dual duty men are those who are able to act as letter sorters as well as telegraphists; while single duty men are able to act only as sorters, or as telegraphists. In order to reap full advantage from the consolidation of the telegraph business with the Postal business, the Post Office for years has been seeking to induce as many as possible of its employees to make themselves competent to act both as sorters and as telegraphists. At offices where it would be particularly advantageous to have the men able to act both as sorters and as telegraphists, the Post Office has sought to establish the rule that no sorter or telegraphist shall be promoted to the first class, unless able to act both as sorter and as telegraphist.
Mr. Crosse was not the only witness before the Tweedmouth Committee whose testimony illustrated “the stimulus” conveyed by questions in the House of Commons. Mr. C. J. Ansell, the representative of the second class tracers in London, stated that in 1891 two vacancies among the first class tracers in a London office had been left open for respectively 5 months and 8 months. He added: “In March, 1894, the Postmaster General’s attention had to be called to this disgraceful state of affairs [by the tracers’ union]. It required, however, the stimulus of a question in the House of Commons. We do not know how far the Postmaster General is responsible for this state of affairs, but it is only fair to state that his attention being drawn to this matter by the question, we were successful in getting those promotions ante-dated.”[301]
The limitations upon the Postmaster General’s power to promote men in accordance with the advice tendered him by his official advisers by no means is confined to the cases of promotion among the rank and file. For instance, it was established by the testimony given before the Tweedmouth Committee, that the Postmaster cannot freely promote, to offices of more importance, postmasters who show that they have more ability than is required to administer the offices over which they happen to preside. For if a postmaster proves to be not equal to the demands of his office, the Postmaster General cannot always remove him to a smaller office, promoting at the same time the more able man who happens to be in charge of the smaller office. The Department tries to meet the situation by sending to the aid of the relatively incompetent postmaster “a smart chief clerk,” taking care, however, that the inefficient postmaster shall receive less than the full salary to which the volume of business of the office would entitle him. If that expedient fails, the Department will transfer the postmaster. Mr. Uren, postmaster at Maidstone, and President of the Postmasters’ Association, even asserted that nothing short of misconduct would lead to the transfer of a postmaster.[302] It should be added, however, that Mr. Uren’s testimony related to the small and medium sized places only, not to the larger cities.[303]
It must not be inferred, however, that the postmasters of the small and medium sized places appeared before the Tweedmouth Committee to demand unrestricted promotion by merit. On the contrary, with the great bulk of the public service of all descriptions,[304] they held that promotion is “slow and uncertain” and that the system of promotion by merit “is thoroughly uncertain in its practical working.” They protested also against the uncertainty and inequality inseparable from the system of making postmasters’ salaries dependent upon the volume of business done by the several and individual Post Offices. They held that no postmaster should be made to suffer by reason of the fact that he happened to be stationed in a town or city that was not growing, or was not growing so rapidly as were other cities. By way of relief from the foregoing “uncertainties” and “inequalities” they demanded a reorganization of the postal service which should secure to the postmasters regular annual increments of pay, and should “regularize” promotion.[305]
Rank and File Oppose Promotion by Merit
It will be remembered that the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments, 1888, expressed the belief: “that the certain advantages of promotion by merit to the most deserving men, and therefore to the public service, are so great as to be sure, in the long run, to command public support.” But the fact remains that a large part of the rank and file of the British civil service is growing more and more intolerant of promotion by merit, and demands promotion by seniority. It will not accept as a fact the natural inequality of men; it asserts, with its cousins at the Antipodes, the Australasian civil servants, that it is the opportunity that makes the man, not the man that makes the opportunity. This impatience of the rank and file of the civil servants of promotion by merit was brought out in striking manner by many of the “grievances” cited by the men who appeared before the Tweedmouth Committee as the accredited representatives of the Post Office employees. Some of those allegations of grievance have just been recorded, but this matter is of sufficient importance to warrant the recording of still others.