Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, The Philatelic Digital
Library Project at http://www.tpdlp.net and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
A HISTORY OF POSTAL AGITATION
_NEW SIX SHILLING NOVELS_
THE SEAFARERS
By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
NELL GWYN, COMEDIAN
By F. FRANKFORT MOORE
AN IMPERIAL LIGHT-HORSEMAN
By HAROLD BLORE
A LOYAL LOVER
By Mrs. LOVETT CAMERON
BECKY
By HELEN MATHERS
THE TIGER’S CLAW
By G. B. BURGIN
THE ACCUSED PRINCESS
By ALLEN UPWARD
MARCELLE OF THE LATIN QUARTER
By CLIVE HOLLAND
THE GENTLEMAN PENSIONER
By ALBERT LEE
A LEGEND OF EDEN
By HARRY LANDER
LYONA GRIMWOOD, SPINSTER
By L. HIGGIN
PHARAOH’S BROKER
By ELLSWORTH DOUGLASS
A HISTORY OF
POSTAL AGITATION
FROM FIFTY YEARS AGO TILL THE
PRESENT DAY
INCLUDING A FEW FORGOTTEN PAGES IN THE
WIDER “HISTORY OF OUR OWN TIMES”
BY
H. G. SWIFT
I have eaten your bread and salt,
I have drunk your water and wine;
The deaths ye have died I have watched beside
And the lives that ye led were mine.
…
I have written the tale of our life.
…
—KIPLING’S _Departmental Ditties_.
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED
HENRIETTA STREET
1900
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY—THE CAUSES OF DISCONTENT AND THE RISE OF POSTAL
AGITATION 5
CHAPTER II
BEGINNINGS OF COMBINED AGITATION—THE COMPULSORY SUNDAY LABOUR
QUESTION—FIRST PUBLIC PROTEST AT EXETER HALL 23
CHAPTER III
ECONOMICAL REFORM, AND A LOWERING OF STATUS—AN ESTIMATE OF
ROWLAND HILL—EFFORTS OF THE _CIVIL SERVICE GAZETTE_—THE
CONDITIONS OF THE SERVICE, 1854-60 30
CHAPTER IV
GROWING DISCONTENT AMONG LETTER-CARRIERS—PROHIBITION OF PUBLIC
MEETING—THE FRANCHISE AMONG POSTAL SERVANTS AND ITS HISTORY 46
CHAPTER V
FORMATION OF AN ORGANISATION—BOOTH, THE LETTER-CARRIER—CONDITION
OF THE LETTER-CARRIERS—PROPOSED PETITION TO PARLIAMENT 58
CHAPTER VI
BOOTH THE LEADER OF THE AGITATION—A MASS MEETING IN THE GENERAL
POST-OFFICE—A PETITION TO PARLIAMENT 65
CHAPTER VII
ASSERTING THE RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING—PUBLIC AND PARLIAMENTARY
FRIENDS—CONFERENCE OF M.P.’S—THE ORGANS OF THE MOVEMENT—MEETING
AT EXETER HALL—A MONSTER PETITION TO PARLIAMENT—ELUDING THE LAW
OF CONSPIRACY 72
CHAPTER VIII
A TEST OF “THE LABOUR MARKET”—THE UGLY DUCKLING OF TRADES
UNIONISM—MR. GEO. HOWELL’S ASSISTANCE—FURTHER DEMONSTRATIONS—THE
DEPARTURE OF BOOTH 89
CHAPTER IX
FORCED LABOUR—A GENERAL POST-OFFICE RIOT—A POSTAL POET—THE
WANING OF THE MOVEMENT—THE PUBLICATION OF A MEMORIAL—WHOLESALE
DISMISSALS 100
CHAPTER X
INTRODUCTION OF BOY LABOUR—CONDITIONS OF SERVICE—DEATH OF
COMBINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES—POSTAL HELOTISM 116
CHAPTER XI
A PERIOD OF STAGNATION—THE BLIND POSTMASTER-GENERAL AND A GLEAM
OF LIGHT—A MEMORABLE VISIT—THE FAWCETT SCHEME 124
CHAPTER XII
BEGINNINGS OF THE TELEGRAPHISTS’ MOVEMENT—AN EARLY ATTEMPT AT A
STRIKE—A _COUP D’ÉTAT_—“SCUDAMORE’S FOLLY” 135
CHAPTER XIII
DISSATISFACTION AMONG TELEGRAPHISTS—STARTING A NEW
ORGANISATION—CONFERENCE AT LIVERPOOL—THREATENED TELEGRAPH
STRIKE—THE FAWCETT SCHEME AND THE TELEGRAPHISTS 157
CHAPTER XIV
SEVEN YEARS OF STAGNATION—THE POST-OFFICE AND GUTTER
JOURNALISM—REVIVAL OF POSTAL JOURNALISM—A CHRISTMAS STRIKE
AVERTED—FIRST GLIMPSE OF A NOTABLE AGITATOR—THE PETITION THAT
“HELD THE FIELD” 170
CHAPTER XV
WORK OF THE FAWCETT SCHEME COMMITTEE—A NOTABLE PAMPHLET—MR.
RAIKES AND THE “AGITATOR”—A NEW POSTAL ORGAN—THE FAWCETT SCHEME
AND THE “LUMINOUS COMMITTEE” 183
CHAPTER XVI
A REAWAKENING OF THE LETTER-CARRIERS—PETITIONS—DEGRADATION AND
DISMISSAL OF THE LEADER—FORMATION OF THE POSTMEN’S UNION—MR.
JOHN BURNS—A PLASTER-OF-PARIS CÆSAR—THE INTERVENTION OF W. E.
CLERY—THE POSTMEN’S STRIKE 204
CHAPTER XVII
CONTINUANCE OF TELEGRAPHISTS’ AGITATION—NATURE OF
GRIEVANCES—“TELEGRAPHISTS’ CRAMP”—AN OUTCOME OF THE
SUNDAY QUESTION—THE CARDIFF EXILES—CONDEMNATION OF
POSTMASTER-GENERAL—THE “NO OVERTIME” PROTEST 222
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PROVINCIAL SORTING CLERKS—THEIR POSITION—THE RIDLEY
COMMISSION, AND EVIDENCE PREPARED—THE FORMATION OF AN
ORGANISATION—THE RIGHT OF PUBLIC MEETING 236
CHAPTER XIX
THE AFTER EFFECTS OF THE POSTMEN’S STRIKE—THE RAIKES
SCHEME—FRESH DISSATISFACTION—AN ESTIMATE OF MR. RAIKES 248
CHAPTER XX
BENEFITS OF THE RAIKES SCHEME—A MARTINET POSTMASTER-GENERAL—A
NEW PARLIAMENTARY POLICY—A PARTING OF THE WAYS—POLITICAL RIGHTS
OF POSTAL SERVANTS—A BLOW AT COMBINATION 256
CHAPTER XXI
REORGANISATION OF THE POSTMEN—THE PROVINCIAL POSTAL
CLERKS—GENERAL CONDEMNATION OF THE DISMISSALS—THE NEWCASTLE
INTERVIEW—AN M.P. AND THE POSTAL AGITATOR—THE RIGHT OF
COMBINATION—CORRESPONDENCE WITH MR. GLADSTONE ON RIGHT OF FREE
MEETING—ANOTHER BLOW AT COMBINATION—RIGHT OF FREE MEETING
CONCEDED BY MR. GLADSTONE—THE GRANTING OF AN INQUIRY 267
CHAPTER XXII
PROGRESS OF THE TELEGRAPH MOVEMENT—CONSTITUTION OF THE
COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY—ITS TERMS OF REFERENCE—FIRST SITTINGS—THE
AWARD OF THE TWEEDMOUTH COMMITTEE—DISAPPOINTMENT AND
CONDEMNATION 285
CHAPTER XXIII
CONTINUANCE OF AGITATION—ANOTHER THREATENED STRIKE OF
TELEGRAPHISTS—THE NORFOLK-HANBURY CONFERENCE—THE “HARDY ANNUAL”
OF THE POST-OFFICE—POSTAL FEDERATION—THE JUBILEE OF POSTAL
AGITATION—CONCLUSION 297
A HISTORY OF POSTAL AGITATION
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY—THE CAUSES OF DISCONTENT AND THE RISE OF POSTAL
AGITATION
The long continuance of agitation and disaffection in the postal
service would seem almost to entitle the public to the belief that the
Post-Office is a place where the Englishman’s privilege, which is to
grumble, is systematically maintained and indulged in as a recreation.
Possibly to many it might seem to justify some such cynicism as that the
Post-Office is a public institution whose employés make mild conspiracy
their serious business in their working hours, and deliver letters and
send telegrams only as a pastime.
The spirit of unrest, at last finding expression in organised agitation,
has for so long been associated with the Post-Office that that department
has come to be regarded in the public mind as not merely a vehicle of
general convenience, but principally as a hot-bed of discontent. In
strange contrast to that serene contentment and peaceableness which
so distinguishes the rest of the Civil Service, the Post-Office has
continued to stand out, with its familiar declaration of grievances,
a single discordant note in the harmony. The Temple of Mercury in St
Martin’s-le-Grand has been found from time to time the scene of angry
discord, and the caduceus of the messenger of the gods, with its twining
snakes, receives a new significance as a postal emblem. The ground about,
that should be expected to yield nothing but the perennial golden
harvest, is found to be given over to weeds, and the production of a crop
of nettles.
Until recently almost, discontent in a Government department was thought
a form of moral disease, and agitators were hunted as assiduously as
was the Colorado beetle. There are doubtless many among the public who
actually entertain some such view in regard to postal servants. There
are many again to whom the Post-Office is represented by the principal
living emblem in livery, the postman; and him perhaps a few tolerate as
something of a nuisance, to whom they have to give a forced contribution
annually to bring up his wages, or whom custom compels them to bribe
into civility and a proper observance of his duties. For beyond the
fact that discontent has prevailed more or less in the postal service
for many years past, the public know but little of the inner workings
or of the conditions which produce this symptom. It may be that the
postman, being such a familiar, and to the majority a more or less
welcome figure, filling the public eye, as he does, shares only with the
Postmaster-General the distinction of representing the greatest public
working institution in the world. What lies behind the outward and
visible working of the vast and complicated piece of machinery, neither
the man in the street nor his peers care much about, because it is hidden
away from the light of day. The numerous army of postal workers, which
comprise the indoor staff—those who sort letters and those who send
telegrams—are as little thought of as the unseen crew of stokers below,
engaged in their inglorious, but none the less useful, task of keeping
the furnaces agoing.
The history of labour in the Post-Office has been a history of restraint
and repression on one side, and of determined, persistent, and, in the
end, more or less successful resistance on the other. The awakening of
the trades-union spirit, and the manifestation of discontent, so long as
it confined itself to a few London letter-carriers, was not formidable
enough to excite either the anxiety or the animosity of the department.
Discontent, disorganised, sporadic, and uncertain in its utterance, could
either remain ignored or dealt with summarily.
It was only when agitation assumed much larger dimensions that it began
to arouse that mingled feeling of apprehension and aversion which
in itself became the means of aggravating still further those very
evils which the authorities aimed at suppressing. Time and again the
authorities, while complaining of the heat, yet added fuel to the fire.
Unionism in the Post-Office has ever been regarded as something
verminous, something to be stamped out, something impertinently out of
place in a Government office, and its leaders treated as breeders of
sedition. And this has been so many years after the principle of trades
unionism has at last been reconciled to Respectability and folded in her
arms.
Slowly, step by step, labour in the Post-Office has gained something
of a recognition of its value; but it has been forced to fight its way
ofttimes with manacled hands and tape-tied feet. Happily, however, the
story of postal agitation and the spread of combination throughout
the postal service is not made up entirely of failures, contumacies,
inflictions, and punishments. That combination in this branch of the
public service has had to fight hard for its very existence from the
beginning till now is perfectly true. It has been uphill work throughout,
and its wounded have been left by the way. But in its struggle against
the forces of bureaucracy it has snatched a victory here and there; it
has received rebuffs, and even now and again courted defeat, but it has
had its exultant moments of victory too. And, on the whole, there is
little to regret that the fight so far has been fought; for where men
have a principle at stake perhaps, to paraphrase a great dead poet, ’tis
better to have fought and lost than never to have fought at all.
That the department has given as little heed as possible to the claims
of postal servants, and far less sympathy, goes without saying. It
has to be remembered that it is a public department, and, generally
speaking, in a public department its niggardliness is in inverse ratio
to its power of profit producing. It requires no argument to prove that
a public institution such as this, run on the old conventional lines of
red-tape and routine, and for the most part in the leading-strings of
a watchful Treasury, would never spontaneously better the condition
of its servants. If the same holds good generally as regards the
relations between capital and labour, between the private employer and
his man, it is more particularly so in a public department. Experience
has proved that a betterment of the conditions of labour among the
working staffs of public bodies as a rule have had to be forced from
the authorities by every legitimate method which agitation can devise,
by persistent petitioning, by deputation, by public meeting, often by
taking the war into the enemy’s country, and getting M.P.’s to beard the
Postmaster-General and the Treasury heads in their official lair, or by
tracking them down in the House of Commons. And even then, after all this
expenditure of force, there is often nothing but disappointment in return.
That it is not always the administrators of a public department who are
to blame so much as the rule and the method which usage and convention
have fossilised, must in all fairmindedness be allowed. It is easy to
believe and understand that the various heads of departments, though
never guilty of the unpardonable indiscretion of showing the smallest
sympathy for agitation as such, none the less do often deplore the
necessity of enforcing certain rules and regulations which act to the
detriment of the men or which are productive of individual cases of
hardship.
This point has only been touched on to show that the grievances which
have given rise to agitation in various times have not been so much
due to the action of officials as to the rules which they have had to
administer. Hemmed in by such conditions, and bound to follow the customs
prescribed by tradition and laid down by departmental etiquette, the
natural inclination is to hold the reins tightly, to sit close, never
to give way for fear of appearing weak, and never to willingly grant
a concession merely because their private conscience may tell them
there is some reason and justice in the demand. In such a situation the
responsible public official has to face a higher tribunal than his own
conscience. It is always fairly safe to refuse concession, but it is
dangerous to grant it until you are compelled to. When the public, the
press, and Parliament unite in saying such and such a demand must and
shall be conceded, then it is time to act, not before. You bow with a
good grace, and salaam and say, “Am I not my master’s servant?” And the
public and the press and Parliament think none the less of you for your
firmness, interpreting your stubbornness as zeal for the public service,
though they would have turned to rend you for your incompetence had you
given way sooner. Such to some extent is the trying position of those
in authority in public departments, they needs must only when the devil
drives, and not a moment before. They are more or less in the position
of a constable whose duty it is to keep back a clamorous crowd testing a
right of way; zeal and duty and anxiety for his position keep him firmly
at his post till his superior and the law give him the nod and he has to
fall back.
It is therefore perhaps not surprising that Government officials have
steadfastly pursued a policy of resistance to all claims for reform
emanating from the subordinate staff. And this policy has been rendered
the easier by such resistance being shown through that abstract entity
known as the “Department,” which may mean one man or twenty, removing
as it does the necessity for any particular individual, from the
Secretary downward, to show his hand or reveal his identity. This is the
system which made possible Dickens’s famous piece of satire anent the
“Circumlocution Office.” It also provides a justification for Sydney
Smith’s equally famous dictum regarding corporations, and, of course,
Government departments—that they “have neither a body to be kicked nor a
soul to be damned.”
Certainly, it holds generally true as an important and significant fact
of postal history, at any rate, that the authorities have never allowed a
claim except grudgingly. And a due appreciation of this fact will conduce
to a better understanding of the events which follow.
That this species of official obstinacy is not altogether peculiar to the
postal service may be abundantly proved by reference to the records of
other public departments. The postal authorities have sinned in very good
company; and, to be fair to both sides of the question, let it be said
that on the whole the sins of omission and commission have doubtless
been dictated as much by a virtuous desire to save the public funds as
to enhance their own credit. That at least is a saving virtue which is
always conveniently placed to the credit of every permanent and public
official, even when he has carried his zeal to excess. Allowing such a
defence to stand without cavilling or questioning, still the fact remains
that in their zeal for the public service the rights, the privileges, the
convenience, the creature comforts, the health, and, it might be said,
the very lives of many of the staff under their control have often been
sacrificed in the past. Yet there have been exceptions, and it will be
seen that the tens of thousands comprising the rank and file of the lower
grades of the service have some reason to hold in grateful esteem the
memory of one Postmaster-General at least—Professor Henry Fawcett. The
high-souled qualities of Henry Fawcett, the blind Postmaster-General, are
even now as familiar as is the recollection of that lamentable infirmity
which only roused him to “wrest victory from misfortune.”
Generally, however, there have been two opposing principles at work
throughout. And with two such positive and negative principles—the desire
of the postal workers to assert those rights already accorded to almost
every other class of labour, and the determination of the officials that
such aspirations must be suppressed as dangerous—it was only to be looked
for that open discontent would manifest itself sooner or later, and
presently assume a more or less definite shape.
The faults and shortcomings almost necessarily incident to such a system
of administration as has been indicated, its failure to move with the
requirements of the times, its too conservative hesitation to compromise
with the growing spirit of reform, its refusal to make allowance for the
universal tendency to combine manifested among all classes of labour
outside, its cheese-paring economy carried into the question of pay
and prospects, were enough in themselves to beget a feeling of unrest
and uncertainty culminating in one of open discontent and agitation.
But these were only the first elements contributing to combination and
defence of principle. Then it was that stubborn refusal to give way on
the part of the authorities developed into scarcely-disguised hostility
to the men and their claims. They held the citadel of privilege,
and the waves of reform might beat against the granite walls of St.
Martin’s-le-Grand but they would make no impression. Certainly they were
not to be moved from their position by the mutterings of a few hundred
malcontents inside who had become infected with the absurd ambition to
better their working conditions, and who actually aspired to the wages
of a skilled mechanic. Not while they had the power and the license to
construe respectful petitions into impertinent demands and respectful
remonstrances into insubordination and constructive treason. It would
have been too much to have met such demands in a spirit of conciliation
and compromise, and, so early in the day, would have been going against
every workable tradition of departmentalism. The fact that a Government
situation was a guarantee of permanent employment so long as they did
not complain should, it was thought, in itself be sufficient to induce
the men to accept every humiliation the department chose to put on them.
In its desire to govern according to its conception of a benevolent
despotism it too commonly provided its employés with a grievance,
or a succession of grievances, arising from its attempt to shape
their workaday lives by rules of military discipline and restrictive
regulations better fitted for a penal settlement than for free men and
citizens of selected character and intelligence.
Such was the attitude of the department and the general conditions of the
postal service when the earlier would-be reformers essayed to urge their
plaint, and, in the most legitimate manner, to strike a blow for freedom.
The men who have been alluded to as those who were first to engage in
agitation and the first to incur the as yet unknown danger of arousing
the resentment of officialdom against such daring innovations, it must
be acknowledged, made up in moral fibre what they lacked in experience
and methods of organisation. At any rate, they deserve to be remembered
kindly by those who afterwards benefited by their efforts. They were the
first to cut away the undergrowth, and to make the straight and solid
path possible. If fault be found with their methods, it has only to be
said that their mistakes were such as generally come in the experimental
stage of almost every enterprise.
If it be thought that the happenings and incidents with which they were
connected or of which they were the authors are here invested with undue
importance, it will be recollected that the men who were identified
with those happenings were among the first actors in an interesting
little industrial drama. It will perhaps not be lost sight of that the
incidents themselves, though insignificant if taken singly, none the less
are important links in the chain, and necessary parts of a whole. Some
acknowledgment is due to these men if only that they were the humble
pioneers of an industrial movement of a special character. Not only this,
but because they kept abreast of the tide of progress when it was nothing
less than dangerous to do so.
If it be objected that every grievance complained of—the conditions of
service, insufficiency of pay prospects and promotion, deprivation of
civil liberty and the right of combination reduced to a meaningless
farce—have had and still have their counterparts in every other
department of the State, that objection in itself scarcely lessens the
justification for the action taken by the agitators. The reasonableness
or otherwise of their methods is another matter which it is proposed
to deal with later on as this narrative unfolds itself. If it be urged
that the policy of attempting to force concessions from a Government
department has been a more or less selfish and sordid one, it must be
conceded also that principle has always entered largely into it. That
their sole consideration was not getting the greatest material benefit
at little cost, and that it was not with them entirely a question of
more bread and butter and less work, is pretty well proved by the risks
which postal agitators have run and the sacrifices they have cheerfully
made. It has never been an easy matter for a man to demand his just dues
in a Government office. The attitude of mind towards the subordinate
staffs in the Post-Office has not essentially altered since the days when
they publicly hanged men for letter-stealing. That was only a little
more than sixty years ago, and if the asperities of administration have
been somewhat softened of late years, it is only through the force of
public opinion, and because the men have learnt lessons of appeal which
render it almost impossible for officialdom to persist in methods of
repression for any length of time. It is because the liberty of the
working-classes has been so enlarged that they can no longer withhold a
modicum of it from postal servants. But there is not wanting the evidence
to show that something of the same spirit which, in the olden times,
sent working-men to the hulks and penal servitude for attempting to band
themselves and their mates together for the purpose of safeguarding
their few interests from a greedy and rapacious employer was alive still
until quite recently, even if it has altogether died out to-day. The
postal servant seeking to better his position or daring to complain
still labours under far greater disadvantages than the mechanic or the
handicraftsman. A postman, a sorting-clerk, or a letter-sorter, if he be
dismissed from his employment cannot pick up his bag of tools and offer
himself to the next workshop, for the simple reason that he has no tools,
and his trade is one of such a peculiar nature that it is wanted nowhere
outside the Post-Office. Nor is a telegraphist much better off in that
respect. Dismissal from the service has generally meant very much more to
the postal official than to the ordinary artisan. He not only lost his
immediate source of livelihood but his future prospects, his hopes of a
pension, towards which he had contributed, his character and everything
were gone, and he had to face the world afresh and take his stand in the
battle of life against those with every advantage over him. And dismissal
was particularly easy in the earlier times, when a suspicious and
malignant officialdom could construe the smallest sign of disaffection
into insubordination. Thus it will be seen it was no child’s play to
engage in agitation twenty or thirty years ago, and the men who did so
evidently did not enter into it for the love of the game altogether.
There must have been something very rotten in the State of Denmark when
men were goaded into what was to them desperate methods, and with so
many odds against them, just for the sake of improving the conditions
of their servitude. It shows that they must have felt their grievances
keenly; it shows that in some degree at least that spirit of resistance
to wrong and injustice to which we owe so much animated and sustained
them throughout. In those days postal agitators stood almost alone,
receiving very little sympathy from the press or the public, and equally
as little assistance from the various trades unions, simply because
postal grievances, which have always been difficult of understanding,
were much more so then, and because it was difficult then to make people
believe that men in permanent Government employment could have grievances
of any kind. That the trades unionists of the country were slow to rally
to their assistance or to proffer them practical sympathy is better
now understood and made allowance for, for postmen and letter-sorters
were not readily recognised as a separate craft by the various unions
of ordinary artisans; they could claim no trade kinship with them; they
were neither this nor that, but a sort of ugly duckling in the legitimate
brood of artisanship.
Fortunately a more intelligent understanding and a better feeling now
exist, and has existed for some years past. But even to gain this simple
recognition that a postal official with a grievance battling against
wrong was a man and a brother entitled to admittance into their ranks,
was not easily obtained even when they sought it. Even the men themselves
were chary of accepting the position of professed trades unionists, and
it was many years before the objections associated with declared trades
union principles and methods were waived by the men of the Post-Office.
The fact is they remained for long uncertain as to their exact
relationship to the general industrial and labour movement. There was
some amount of mutual distrust between outside trade organisations and
combination in the Post-Office, and both parties failed to see distinctly
what there was in common between them. It must be admitted that despite
their awakening so far, the postal agitators still preserved something
of that reserve which may have been easily mistaken for pride or perhaps
priggishness; and, indeed, felt that an open connection with trades
unionism might damage their chances of redress, and alienate the support
and sympathy of the few public men on whom they relied. Besides, it has
to be considered that the trades-union doctrine was not sufficiently
accepted to be yet accounted respectable. But all that is now past; it
has been rendered both respectable and respected by almost universal
acceptance, and postal agitation owes not a little to it. And if postal
agitation owes more to the spirit of trades unionism than the latter
does to any postal effort, then, to claim no more for it, perhaps trades
unionism has no reason to feel ashamed of its poor relation who fought a
battle in its behalf years ago. They maintained its principle within that
most unlikely and unpromising of places, a Government office, against
hostile officials who were backed up with inexhaustible reserves and the
best artillery.
That the solid advantages gained through agitation have not even up to
the present day fully compensated for the sacrifices made, the time, the
trouble, the energy, and the money expended on it, can perhaps be freely
admitted. Yet the same holds good of every other movement of higher
pretension, social and political. Men with a purpose count the moral
advantage as well as the material gain. If only considerations of this
nature had always weighed in the past, our Merrie England would to-day be
divided into slaves and slave-owners.
To its credit be it said then, that postal agitation has not been
altogether confined to capturing the enemies’ cattle, or to striving
for yet a bigger share of the loaves and fishes. It has only had to
discover its duties and responsibilities to immediately lay claim to
them, and to strenuously assert its right to fulfil them. It has always
maintained the principle of combination as a principle, while it has long
and persistently protested against the exclusion of postal servants from
the full enjoyment of civil rights and the untrammelled exercise of the
franchise. It has lost few opportunities of championing the cause of the
weak against departmental intolerance, and silently and unseen it has
often stayed the hand of official persecution at the very moment it was
raised to strike. It has triumphed ultimately where often it has seemed
to have failed. It has fought for and won the one right accorded to every
free-born British citizen who was not a postal official—the right of free
speech and open public meeting.
When, as an unpretentious little organisation, numerically weak and
modest in its programme, it was first started by a few London postmen
and letter-sorters, it was doubtless prompted principally by the very
human desire to improve their own workaday lives and to benefit their
wives and children. It need not be claimed that they were animated by any
higher or nobler motive.
But as time went on, “new occasions taught new duties,” and as the sphere
of their operations almost insensibly widened, so they readily accepted
the responsibilities attaching to their character as the wing of a
forward movement.