ENGINEERS, STORES AND FACTORIES
(_a_) _The Engineers_
In writing of the activities of the General Post Office, it is difficult
to know where to stop, or in that slaughter of the innocents which must
always take place when space is not available, to decide who is to be
spared. We certainly cannot leave out the Post Office engineer. He often
works unseen and unappreciated by the general public, but he has this
consolation, that he is indispensable, and in the Post Office of the
future he may become the most important man in the service. Sometimes,
perhaps, our eye may have been arrested, when passing along a street, by
the spectacle of a man apparently attempting acrobatic feats on the top
of a telegraph pole, and he will often attract the same curious
attention from a London crowd as a fallen horse or a motor car in
difficulties. He is probably an employé of the Post Office, and belongs
to the Engineer's Department.
For several centuries the Post Office was simply a carrier of letters,
and it is difficult to realise that a larger portion of its effective
work depends at the present day on the skill of the engineer. Since 1870
a sum of over £100,000,000 has been expended in the purchase,
maintenance, and extension of telegraph and telephone business, and the
expenditure on telephone maintenance alone up to the end of 1908
amounted to nearly £8,000,000.
The engineers have during recent years provided a large mileage of
underground wires, connecting London with Edinburgh, with the west of
England, the Midlands and the south-eastern counties. The need for the
engineer's work in the postal service is felt more and more every day.
All round our coasts he is erecting and maintaining stations for
wireless telegraphy, and if the aeroplane becomes the carrier eventually
of our letters, the engineer will be the chief official in the postal as
well as the telegraph work of the Post Office. Even now there is an
increasing demand for mechanical appliances in postal work. There are
the conveyors and stamping machines used in sorting office work, and new
developments in this direction are probable in the future.
The Engineer-in-Chief's staff numbers about 300, but the Department
controls a vast army of men, totalling 10,000, engaged in the manual
labour connected with telegraph and telephone business. The importance
of the Department is scarcely yet recognised even by the Administration
of the General Post Office, which is, naturally, still disposed to run
the business on non-mechanical lines, and possibly more importance is
attached to old-established branches of the service. But the day of the
engineer is arriving, and he will enter into his own before many years
are over. Some day, perhaps, the Chief Engineer will be _ex-officio_ the
Chief Secretary. And when calculating machines become universal, he may
easily become the Accountant-General also.
A mere layman, unversed in electrical science and technical terms, finds
it extremely difficult to understand, except in the broadest outlines,
the engineering work of the Post Office. The technicalities of the
telegraph and the telephone are very difficult to explain, without the
use of scientific terms. We sympathise with the lady who was being told
by a member of the Ordnance Survey how marvellously accurate were the
results achieved by his Department. He spoke with enthusiasm, and told
her how they started with a measured base several miles in length on
Salisbury Plain, how they triangulated over the whole of England and
Scotland, and finally had a similar base in Ireland. They then compared
the actual length of that base with the length it should have had
according to their calculations, and in a most impressive manner the
Ordnance Survey man informed his companion that there was found a
difference between them of nine inches.
The lady had listened with intentness, and with that appearance of
understanding which is assumed so much more convincingly by a woman than
by a man. “And did they have to do it all over again?” was the question
she put to the engineering enthusiast!
If we are conducted through the instrument rooms of the General Post
Office, we want to ask heaps of questions, probably, but we are like
folk who have learnt enough of a foreign language to ask a question but
not enough to understand the answer.
An engineer's work is not, however, wholly technical. In planning and
organising telegraph or telephone routes many varied duties fall to his
lot. What is called “wayleave getting” has in the past provided him with
abundance of opportunities to show his skill in diplomacy. This
particular work is the obtaining permission from owners of property and
local authorities for telegraph lines and poles to be erected. When a
member of the British public thinks the Government require something
from him he may feel flattered, but he certainly hardens his heart and
makes an effort to take advantage of the needs of the State. I will give
an instance of the sort of reception an engineer experiences when he is
wayleave getting. A jobbing carpenter and coffin maker was approached
with the idea of permitting a telegraph pole to be erected in his back
garden. He did not particularly object to the pole, but he put up his
back immediately when hearing of the sum offered by the Post Office. The
engineer was eloquent about the matter being for the public good, but
the man was inexorable. It was pointed out to him further that the
Department paid a guinea for each of its poles, and that to give what
the man demanded would be ruinous, especially as the telegraph branch
was making no profit. The man replied, “Then all I can say is you look
damned well on a concern as don't pay.”
Another man did not particularly care to have the pole, but eventually
consented. He said, however, that it would not be worth his while to
collect the shilling which would be due to him. He was told he need not
trouble to collect it himself, as the postman would bring it round. It
was the Christmas season, and the man's indignation was aroused at the
apparent slimness of the Post Office. “Ah, I see; I take with one hand
and give it back with the other, to the postman for his Christmas box.”
An engineer, seeing a man who appeared to be the proprietor of an
estate, where some trees were interfering with the wires, asked
permission of him to trim the branches. “No objection at all, my dear
fellow; trim away as much as you like.” This the officer did until the
real proprietor came out and wanted to shoot the engineer. The other
man, who was a stranger to the neighbourhood, in the meantime escaped.
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[Illustration]
_Photo_ _Clarke & Hyde_
UNDERGROUND TELEPHONE WIRES.
Underneath the streets of London are miles and miles of
telephone wires. This is a section of the lines running
beneath the Kingsway, and the operators are at work
repairing the wires.
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Some people give way handsomely when they find there is no chance of
standing out successfully. Under the Telegraph Construction Act (1908)
the Department has certain powers of compulsion. Representations were
made to a lady but she took no heed of them, and a notice was served on
her by the Solicitor of the Department. She replied: “With reference to
your communication respecting the erection of telegraph poles, &c., I am
afraid I have not taken much interest in the matter, and I thought it
was all finished long ago. The absurd fuss that was made some time ago
seemed to cause my husband much amusement, and as he is letter
scribbling, and has nothing else to do or think about, I handed the
affair over to him to see to, as I did not think it of any importance.
As far as I am concerned you can put 40,000 poles or anything else you
like up down or all over the road: it is a matter of absolute
indifference to me.”
The laying of underground wires is, however, developing fast, but it
is usually cheaper to keep the wires overhead, and in the present
state of electrical science the effectiveness of a telephone wire is
reduced when laid underground. In the Postmaster-General's Report for
1906 he deplored the differences into which he was forced with
landowners, and “with those valuable associations whose care it is to
preserve the natural beauty of the country. In the case of Hindhead I
am glad to say that, thanks to the consideration shown by the
Directors of the London and South-Western Railway, I was able to take
the poles by another route.” It is pleasant to find consideration for
the beauty of the country influencing the policy of the Post Office.
The Postmaster-General went on to say that “means of overcoming the
present difficulties are urgently required; for it is most
unsatisfactory that important towns should go for years with
inadequate trunk telephone facilities because it has not been possible
to overcome some difficulty of wayleave many miles away.” This was
written before the Telegraph Construction Act of 1908 was passed, but
even with increased powers the Department experiences great opposition
from local authorities and others to the erection of overhead wires,
and the wayleave getter's task is still difficult in many districts.
Another of the works carried out by the Engineer's Department is the
establishment of a system of synchronisation of clocks by means of
ingenious automatic appliances, and in this matter the Post Office has
given a lead to the nation. At no distant date, if the example of the
Post Office is followed, we may be spared the experience which
frequently occurs in a London street, of finding a difference of time in
almost every clock we pass. The Post Office clocks are like Wordsworth's
cloud, they move together if they move at all.
(_b_) _Stores and Factories_
The Stores Department is another branch of the service which does not
come under the direct notice of the public. But it is as necessary to
the Post Office as the stoker is to the railway train. Stop the supplies
and every post office in the country will feel the effect very quickly.
Nothing is too small or insignificant to be supplied by the Stores. If a
department wants a packet of pins it applies to the Stores: if it
requires a safe or a telegraph pole the Stores will supply the article.
If an official requires a uniform the Stores will fit him as well as a
West End tailor. The business done is colossal; the figures of the
Stores Department are in some respects the most interesting in the Post
Office. They would move to envy firms like Selfridge's or Harrod's. For
instance, in one year 1,250,000 pens were supplied to the
Postmaster-General, and yet, as Mr. Sydney Buxton complained
pathetically when mentioning this fact publicly, his handwriting was no
better. During the year 1909 more than £1,300,000 of goods were
purchased by the Post Office, and £800,000 of this represented the cost
of engineering stores.
Everything that is required in connection with postal and telegraph work
is examined and tested before delivery. No fewer than 1,035,720 separate
consignments of stores, weighing 6223 tons, are despatched from the
Studd Street depôt annually. About 100,000 persons in the United Kingdom
are supplied with uniform, and the total number of garments issued
annually is about 420,000. The annual value of all this clothing amounts
to about £210,000. As a rule everybody is allowed two suits, one for
summer and one for winter wear, and they are made according to standard
sizes. The method adopted is called the Fitting Sizes Scheme, and I
shall refer to it in more detail in my chapter on the Postman.
The Department always holds large stocks of cloths, linings, tapes,
braids, and buttons, and it issues them from time to time to its
tailoring contractors. Think of a supply of three or four million
buttons! The percentage of misfits is two.
Mail bags, parcel post receptacles, official bicycles, and telegraph
instruments are supplied in large quantities. Over 11,000 bicycles,
carriers, and trailers are in use throughout the Kingdom, and the
mileage covered by them amounts to 150 million miles per year.
Miscellaneous postal stores, such as stamps, seals, scales, weights,
telegraph paper, string, sealing-wax, are purchased by the Stores for
the Post Office. Printed matter, pens, ink, paper, and office
requisites, though stocked and distributed by the Stores, are supplied
by the Stationery Office, Whitehall. Household stores, that is materials
for cleansing and cooking purposes, are supplied to the Post Office by
the Board of Works. The Stores supply the General Post Office with red
tape to the extent of 1,000,000 yards annually. The amount will not come
as a surprise to many people, who may perhaps be inclined to say that
the exports of red tape by the Post Office even exceeds the big import.
Needless to say, the Stores only supply the article in its material
form: they are content to allow the administrative branches to
manufacture the other kind. Pencils are supplied to the tune of
1,000,000, and pens I have already mentioned. Again the critic may step
in and say that if the average post office pen were renewed as often as
it ought to be the order from the Stores would be still larger than it
is. The stationery supplies are of course stupendous. Here are a few
figures covering one year: 2200 gallons of gum, 4800 gallons of writing
ink, 11,000 boxes of paper-fasteners, 4800 quires of blotting-paper. And
you can get sealing wax in three qualities, and in hundredweights. But
if I continue in this strain I shall turn the heads of my readers.
Closely allied to the Stores are the factories. Speaking broadly, the
Post Office does not make the goods which it requires; it gets them for
the most part from other firms: the goods are brought into the factories
to be examined and tested, and the Stores distributes them throughout
the Kingdom. A certain amount of manufacture does, however, take place
at the factories. A quantity of telegraphic apparatus is made here: the
supply and upkeep of thousands of miles of telegraphs and telephone
lines has to be provided for. In one place you will find a machine, the
work of which consists in installing wires into cables: in another you
will find a machine doing exactly the opposite kind of work, pulling
cables to pieces that have had their day; the wires are untwisted, and
the gutta-percha is stripped off. The insulators for the telegraph poles
all come into the factory, and the arms on which they are to be fixed
for the support of the wires are made here. They are of British oak or
Australian karri-wood. All kind of fittings for postal and telegraph
work, including silence cabinets for the telephone business, are
constructed in the factory.
Repairs form a large part of the work. Here are awaiting repair, straps,
postmen's bags and pouches, and the great bull hides—envelopes as they
are called—in which the mail bags are wrapped to be dropped by the
Travelling Post Office. Many of these are continually being brought into
the factories to be repaired, rent and split up all to pieces,
indicating the violence of the action which often takes place during the
exchange of the bags.
Leather is used very much in postal appliances, and a large staff is
employed making and repairing articles. Powerful sewing-machines are
employed for the purpose. One curious industry is the making of the
little felt and leather carriers which are used for the transmitting
written telegrams and other papers through the pneumatic tubes. These
are made by women. There are, as I have already pointed out, miles of
these pneumatic tubes under the streets of London.
Here is a paint shop, also a smith's shop with steam blast and hammer.
Basket-mending is very much in evidence. The Post Office uses thousands
of baskets, many of which used to be made in prisons. The bulk, however,
come from contractors, but the mending is done here.
When the articles have been tested the Stores undertake the delivery
throughout the country.
One of the burning questions of the Post Office is the supply of
telegraph poles. In the Post Office Circular of the 8th December 1908,
the Postmaster-General invited his staff throughout the country to
acquaint him of any promising sources of home-supplied timber. There was
a time when the needs of the British Post Office were met solely from
Norway. From the Norwegian forests came the poles which supported the
overhead telegraphs of the United Kingdom. But at the present time there
is a shrinkage in the supply from that quarter. The Post Office requires
40,000 poles per annum. Sweden has supplied us, and now Russia with her
interminable and primeval forests sends us the poles. There are virgin
forests in Russia in the White Sea Hinterland, but these are very dense,
and it is sometimes very difficult to get out of them anything longer
than 40 feet. The timbers used for telegraph “arms” are, however,
imported from Australia.
An interesting fact about the supply of telegraph stores is that a
General Election decided on at short notice involves an immediate order
for 2600 instruments with accessory stores. The additional telegraph
forms required reach high figures.
Arrangements are made to meet emergency requisitions due to telegraphic
breakdowns, naval or military manœuvres, &c., and officers are
frequently called from their home at night to despatch by the first
means at their disposal the necessary instruments.
The returned stores form a large item of the business. Instruments get
out of date as well as out of repair. These are examined by an officer,
who decides whether they shall be sold complete, or broken up and sold
as brass, ebonite, &c. It pays to break up instruments, if, for example,
they contain platinum, but on the other hand, for instruments such as
bells, switches, &c., there is a limited demand, and these are sold in
small lots by auction. It is a matter of some difficulty to determine,
and it has frequently to be decided by experiment, what instruments can
be broken up, and as the demand is very limited, how many complete
instruments can be released from stock without affecting the price.
Storeboys do most of the breaking up of instruments, and useful parts
are retained for stock. Nobody can be relied on to break up anything
with more of the joy of life than a boy. Lead-covered cable is stripped
in the factories for sale as copper and lead, and gutta-percha for sale
as copper wire and gutta-percha strippings. Superintending Engineers
throughout the country are allowed to sell locally certain stores such
as old iron, iron wire, and poles, but other valuable stores are sent to
London for disposal.
There are two or three general tender sales of old stores in the year,
and special sales of copper and lead are arranged whenever the
accumulations or the state of the market require it. But the scrap-heap
of the Post Office is of the dimensions of a mountain.
There are also returned postal stores, which come under the name of
condemned material. These are sold for what they will fetch. In one year
the Department obtained £1800 for clothing and rags, £850 for string,
and £700 for boots. Accumulations of used string are disposed of also
locally by certain postmasters. Here is indeed an example in domestic
economy.
The Stores supply in response to requisitions a quantity of postal
stores to the Colonies and British post offices abroad. There are
British post offices at Ascension, Beyrout, Constantinople, Panama,
Salonica, Smyrna, and Tangier.
I must not omit to mention the Awards Committee of the Post Office,
which exists to encourage workmen and other Post Office servants to
bring forward suggestions for improvements in machinery, tools,
apparatus, &c., and lists of the awards are published from time to time
in the Post Office Circular. The Postmaster-General, in a recent report,
stated that “since the operations of the Committee began, the Post
Office workmen have displayed greater interest in their work.”
There is a systematic inspection of the conditions of employment under
Post Office contractors. The amended Fair Wages Resolution passed by the
House of Commons on the 10th March 1909 is now inserted in all contracts
for Post Office stores, and firms desiring to be added to the official
lists of contractors are required to give an undertaking that they will
conform strictly to the conditions of this Resolution. A clause is also
introduced into head-dress and clothing contracts prescribing minimum
wages for women and girl workers.
The labour conditions of the Post Office in other respects are sometimes
not so satisfactory. A Superintending Engineer recently sent in a claim
for a double extra allowance for certain of his men who had performed
seventy-six hours' extra duty each in a week, and he explained that one
of the men had worked for eighteen of these hours “under somewhat
discouraging conditions, being head downwards in a manhole.” Many of us
would prefer to take the risk of balancing ourselves on the top of a
telegraph pole.
The work of the Stores Department is, it will be seen, of a singularly
responsible character. Dealing as it does with contractors in a very
large way, it requires in its officers not only judgment and experience
but the highest commercial probity as well. Dealing also with large
numbers of workmen, it has opportunities of earning for the State a
reputation for fair treatment, and for setting an example to private
firms. No doubt the popular view would be that the Stores only supply
telegraph poles, sealing-wax, and things of that sort, and any salesman
in Oxford Street could do the work. The Stores Department suffers from
its name: the man in the street connects it in his mind with the Civil
Service Stores, and he knows what goes on in those premises. But if he
were to visit the offices of the Department, he would find the
difference rather striking, and he would for ever afterwards have a
wondering respect for “the man from the Stores” who buys and sells
articles by the million, and who will probably ask you for the loan of a
pencil or a stick of sealing-wax, as his personal supply of these
articles has run short.