DISCONTENTS IN THE OFFICE. (1855-1859.)
While, however, content thus prevailed at the Post Office, and while reports from all quarters spoke highly of the general conduct of those employed in its service, it was inevitable that amongst so large a body of men discontent should arise somewhere or other. Promotion by merit, however satisfactory to the deserving, did little to gratify those who had no merit to show, and was yet more distasteful to any whose conduct positively shrunk from examination. Even less gratification was doubtless felt by men who found themselves deprived of extra pay long received but never earned,—nay, accorded where, instead of additional service, even ordinary duty had been so remitted as to become little more than nominal.
Of course, too, the officials of the Post Office, high and low, like all other persons employed in whatever service, hold themselves constantly open to an offer of increased salary or other improvement in condition; and as, in the nature of things, such advancement does not always come so frequently as desired, are not a little disposed to give the matter a helping hand when convenient. It will readily be imagined that such movements are most frequent in the lower branches of the service; or at least take there their most troublesome form. Sorters and letter-carriers, like other handicraftsmen, are more struck with the amount of their own work than able to appreciate the superior skill and incomparably greater labour required in the higher operations; and thus their inequality of condition, though the natural result of inferiority in qualifications, is too apt to be regarded as a standing grievance. Unfortunately, the public is somewhat apt to foster the error; to accept without examination sweeping statements as to excessive labour and insufficient recompense; and, as in the case of other operatives, the evil is prodigiously aggravated by men who in such aggravation find advantage or gratification to themselves, and who unhesitatingly swerve as far from truth and justice as public credulity will allow—no very limited tether.
In a weekly paper entitled the “Civil Service Gazette” I was subjected, from an early period of my career at the Post Office, to almost constant personal attacks; many of them written with considerable plausibility, but all void of substantial truth. Every one who has well considered the subject of slander must know how great an advantage the unscrupulous journalist has over the object of his attack, in the dilemma in which he places him of either replying, at much expense of time and dignity, to unfounded charges, or of allowing to them the sanction which a very large, though somewhat thoughtless, portion of the public infers from reticence. The amount of mischief that may be done in any department of manufacturing industry by artful misrepresentation addressed to over-willing ears has been painfully illustrated of late; and this is by no means without its parallel in that widely-extended department of Government which was so long the scene of my labours. Some notion of the means employed may be formed by a perusal of the following handbill, a copy of which was most properly forwarded to the Chief Office by the postmaster of a large provincial town, who found it in circulation among the clerks of his office:—
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POST OFFICE REFORM. AGITATE—AGITATE—AGITATE!!! READ THE “CIVIL SERVICE GAZETTE,” Unstamped 5d.—Stamped 6d. July 24th, 1858, Rowland Hill’s Last Ukase! BREAK DOWN OF THE GAGGING SYSTEM! WHITE SLAVES OF THE POST OFFICE. 31st, Rowland Hill’s Job Frustrated: HIS GREAT REVENGE: The Screw and Gagging System of the General Post Office. POST OFFICE REFORMS AND THE WAY TO GET THEM: HOPE FOR THE LETTER CARRIERS. Coming Emancipation of the White Niggers. August 7th, POST OFFICE MANAGEMENT. OUR MISSING LETTERS AND OUR LATE DELIVERIES. The Letter Carriers’ “Bill of Fare.” 14th, Post Office Reform by Merit, REVELATIONS FROM ST. MARTINS LE GRAND. HOPE FOR THE OPPRESSED. THE POST MASTER GENERAL AND THE LONDON LETTER CARRIERS. Communications addressed, pre paid, to C. W. No. 9, East Mount Terrace, London.—E. will meet with immediate attention. |
Self-answering as such exaggeration must appear to the thoughtful and well-informed, it is not without its effect on the unthinking and ignorant, particularly when the demands it implies correspond with their own natural desires. In some hope, therefore, of averting, or at least lessening, mischief, I drew the attention of Lord Colchester, then Postmaster-General, to the intrusion of this handbill into the department. It must be added that the copy received at the provincial office was enclosed in a circular signed by a former postmaster who had been dismissed for misconduct. His lordship entered into the matter with interest, and suggested further inquiry; which, being made, showed that the offensive paper had been sent to various other large offices. Nothing, however, resulted from these measures; and, as I had long ago directed my private secretary to make no report of what appeared in that journal, save in cases of absolute necessity, I was generally able, when a good-natured friend inquired if I had seen the last attack, to reply in all sincerity that I did not read the paper. The attacks, I understand, continued some years longer, many of them being traced to discharged servants of the office. I cannot but express my regret that the Civil Service should not have seen that it was disgraced by the support of a paper which condescended to such disreputable means for accomplishing its objects. Be this as it may, it is easier to shut one’s eyes to a fire than to put it out or prevent its spreading, and, as will be seen, the sparks thus maliciously scattered were not altogether without effect.
The eligibility of a letter carrier’s position at the time to which I refer was shown, not only by the large number of respectable men constantly applying for appointment, but by the advantages attached to the service in respect of rate of wages, supply of clothing, opportunity for rising into the class of sorters, the pension provided for old age (combined with assistance in life assurance), the gratuitous supply to a large portion of the force of medical attendance and medicine, and lastly, the annual holiday granted without loss of wages; while, with all this remuneration, the hours of labour, taking one day with another, were limited to eight. I may add that measures were in progress for yet further improving the condition of the letter-carriers.[202]
Every care, moreover, had been taken to provide for the speedy rectification of individual cases of hardship, which in so large and rapidly extending a department might unwittingly arise, by giving the fullest opportunity for legitimate complaint, by guarding all such complainants as took the prescribed mode from any consequent prejudice, however unfounded their allegations might prove, and by allowing to the lowest man in the service the means of appeal to the highest authority, that of the PostmasterGeneral. With such provision it might perhaps have been hoped that not only would all motive to such insubordinate proceedings as had frequently troubled the department in previous years be entirely removed, but even that irregular modes of complaint would not have been taken, at least until after full trial of the appointed channel.
Nevertheless, about two months after the circulation of the inflammatory paper given above, amidst an almost total absence of formal complaint, and certainly without substantiation of any grievance in respect of a class, or even of individuals, a meeting of letter-carriers was held in the South Western district, and reported in the newspapers, at which “Speeches were made containing statements which the men who uttered them must have known to be false, but from the consequences of which they endeavoured to screen themselves by concealing their names.”[203] For the time the misconduct was repressed; but we felt that without either such a course of concession as would gradually raise salaries far beyond true remuneration (thus tending to serious waste and other evils, not less certain though less patent), or such union of firmness and energy in all the authorities of the department as would render even an approach to mutiny unsafe to those concerned, recurrence of trouble was certain, and its imminence could not but remain a source of anxiety. This will further appear in a later period of my narrative.