BOOTH THE LEADER OF THE AGITATION—A MASS MEETING IN THE GENERAL
POST-OFFICE—A PETITION TO PARLIAMENT
So the wave of discontent gathered force. By 1871 the agitation for
better pay, better-adjusted hours of duty, and better prospects had
assumed some appearance of an organisation, though without a recognised
leadership. But the man was to come when the hour demanded him. The
forces were ready; an army of volunteers, enthusiastic and confident in
their cause, but as yet undrilled. They were not undisciplined though,
for the rules and restrictions by which they were bound kept them in
order, and strengthened their self-control. An army of discontented
Government servants thus almost of their own free-will, and spontaneously
brought together without an acknowledged leader, without even as yet an
accepted plan of procedure, is, from this distance of time, not a little
curious to contemplate. It at once affords an evidence of the existence
of very real grievances as the impelling cause of the men’s sincerity and
of their self-command. So far, there is not one single case of enthusiasm
carried to excess; the movement had been orderly in its growth, and in no
case had their grievances caused them to forget the respect due from them
to those who ruled over them; nor to diminish their loyalty to the public
service. It is as gratifying as it is remarkable.
Here, then, at this period were the forces, two contingents of them,
ready and eager to test their strength in any manner that was legitimate
and lawful.
They would not shrink from the displeasure of the officials; they knew
that the frown of the Postmaster-General was already upon them. Who then
was to be leader of these irregulars? The man came forward when the
moment arrived, and henceforth for a few years Booth was to assume the
leadership. He was not particularly eloquent, and had no gifted fancy,
nor a tongue to form choice periods; but he had a full-throated voice
with a ring in it, a head well poised on thick-set shoulders, and every
comrade knew him for one who was not afraid. Every comrade knew him for a
man who meant what he said, and could say it pointedly, if not elegantly.
Experience of him had taught them that what he put his hand to he carried
through; they knew that he could formulate a petition as easily as he
could knock a man down.
Up to this time petition after petition had been laboriously drawn up by
committees and meekly presented by the men, only to be ignored by the
authorities, or returned as informal. Months had been wasted in this
manner, till the aggrieved men, letter-carriers and sorters alike, got
weary of waiting. They wanted to be on the march, but none knew whither.
It was now that William Booth came to the front. The forces of discontent
were not to dwindle away for want of a man. There was work to be done;
there was a road to be made, and here were the willing hands and the
implements ready. Booth sprang out of the ranks, and put himself at the
head of them, and facing them addressed them.
His first word of command was short and decisive. “To the House of
Commons!” said he. The very audacity of the proposal for a moment almost
unnerved them, but the fact itself went a long way to convince them that
their leader had come at last. Too long had they wasted their energies
and their time on fruitless effort, and too long had they contented
themselves with standing still, or progressing slowly over the same
beaten track provided by officialdom. “To the House of Commons!” There
was something original in the idea, and its very daring after a while
recommended it. From the armoury of the franchise they had been provided
with a new and efficient weapon; and St. Stephen’s should provide them
with a shooting-range.
Forthwith, under the recognised leadership of Booth, they set themselves
in this direction. The first difficulty that presented itself was the
discovery that Parliament was guarded by the skirts of the department,
and that therefore it was necessary to first obtain permission of the
magnates of St. Martin’s-le-Grand to draw up a petition to Parliament
at all. The liberty of the individual was more restricted than they
imagined. The franchise had been extended to them; a weapon had been
put into their hands by the Constitution; but the authorities reserved
to themselves the right to overlook their powder and shot, and fix
the firing distance for them. There was no help for it; not even the
originality of their leader could circumvent the department in this
respect. The House of Commons, free of approach to every working-man in
the kingdom, was as yet barred to postal officials by an inquisitive
and mistrustful bureaucracy to prevent their being too rash in their
importunities. They might think themselves very fortunate in having
obtained the liberty to use their vote; but to dare approach openly the
sacred persons of those who represented them, without first submitting
their intention, was not to be thought of.
Accordingly the necessary petition to the Controller of the London postal
service, asking the liberty and the indulgence of being allowed to draw
up and present a humble petition to the people’s representatives in
Parliament assembled, was prepared and sent in. The humble petitioners
waited with bated breath, and wondered what would become of Booth when
it was realised that he was the moving spirit of the daring enterprise.
With more than usual discretion, too, they obtained this official
permission to hold a meeting to consider and discuss the terms of the
proposed petition to the House of Commons. After some little delay, and
a few further inquiries, thought more or less appropriate and necessary,
the permission sought for was granted. But there was to be no outside
public meeting this time. Whatever they had to say must be said within
hearing of the officials and under the official roof. And there were to
be no strangers present; and journalists and newspaper reporters were
so strictly prohibited that any one might have shot them on sight as
interlopers without incurring departmental displeasure.
The meeting was interesting, if only from the fact that it was the first
meeting of this nature ever known to have been held in the Post-Office.
It was quite a new departure, and the men halted between satisfaction and
suspicion. They felt that whatever the advantage in other respects, they
were muzzled to an extent. They felt that the department was treating
them like children who could not be trusted beyond the playground for
fear of throwing stones in the street. Still, they determined to accept
the situation, and to make the best of it.
The meeting was called for the 28th June 1873, to be held after the duty,
at eight o’clock in the evening, and the Newspaper Branch at the top of
the building was placed at their disposal. For in those days, in this
particular branch at least, there was a cessation of duty after this
hour. The conditions were bad; but the Post-Office was not always at work
during the whole round of the clock; it was not exactly the ever-panting,
ever-working, never-ceasing, never-sleeping monster it is at the present
day. The floor of the branch would be capable of accommodating over two
thousand men; but it was necessary to make some preparation. A platform
was extemporised from two or three of the facing or stamping tables,
each almost of the dimensions of a respectable platform in itself,
and round this a number of chairs and seats were ranged. The seating
accommodation was, however, principally made up of bundles of disused
mail-bags and baskets, while a considerable number, perhaps the majority,
stood. The success of the meeting from the first moment was beyond all
expectation. If any had fears that the men would be too suspicious of
attending a gathering of this kind within the precincts of the building,
and under the shadow of the department, they were mistaken. Almost
directly the despatches were finished, and the duty done with for the
night, they swarmed in from every part. From every other branch in the
building—for the General Post-Office is a nest of branches, like a
Chinese puzzle-box—and from outside offices they swarmed up the stairs
and through every means of entry. The men from the districts showed up
in full strength, and provided a few spectators for the platform. The
branch in its structure was admirably suited to such a meeting; it was
lofty, and there was a plentiful supply of gas-jets, depending in a long
regiment from the ceiling. By half-past eight, the time for opening the
meeting, the vast room was crowded. Every one was expectant and curious;
this was an auspicious occasion, and there was something of novelty
in the circumstance and the local surroundings. It was pretty well
conjectured that spies would be present, as they were generally to be
looked for at all their open deliberations. They were pretty well known,
but it would have been impolitic, if not impossible, to exclude them.
Those who were among the crowd could not very well on the spot take notes
of what they heard and saw without betraying the real reason of their
presence there. But if it was suspected there were official spies there,
it was more than suspected, it was known almost for a certainty they had
on their side a newspaper reporter, who had been quietly smuggled in with
the crowd of district men. Thus was the prohibition of the officials
evaded; and it was said that the _Standard_ reporter avoided the scrutiny
at the entrance by borrowing a portion of a letter-carrier’s uniform. It
was afterwards said that the enterprising reporter found concealment in
a recess beneath the great gallery clock, which overlooked the whole of
the branch. However this may be, that there was an officially proscribed
“chiel amang them takin’ notes” was sufficiently evidenced a few hours
later, when the morning _Standard_ came out with a report of the night’s
proceedings.
The floor of the branch, which when empty was like the interior of an
enormous barn, by half-past eight was black with men. Not only did they
completely cover the floor in a dense, solidly-packed mass, but they
perched themselves on the tops of the sorting-tables; they swarmed up the
tall slim iron columns which support the roof, and clung there, thirty
feet above those below. Others more venturesome, by the same means, found
a resting-place on the higher ledges of the over-stretching girders,
smothered in dust, their heads in contact with the shelving ceiling.
Hundreds more had to content themselves with catching an occasional
glimpse of the platform and its occupants through the tiers of empty
pigeon-holes, rising from the middles of the sorting-tables into which
the newspapers were sorted. For every one came to see as much as to hear.
A very large number from distant districts had only heard of him, and
wanted to see Booth. They wanted to see what kind of man it was whose
audacity and whose organising resource had so far overcome official
objections as to make this meeting possible, who had thus enabled them to
beard the official lion in his very den. The rostrum on the platform was
contrived of big square mail-baskets and some wooden boxes covered over
with mail-bags, touched up with a piece of green baize in the middle;
and by this there were sitting a few postmen and others. Some one rose
to speak, but the tumultuous outbreak of applause kept him silent on his
feet for fully a minute. This, then, was Booth; and eyes and ears were
strained to better take his measurement, and to catch his words—a rather
short, sturdy man, with a full head and somewhat Gladstonian features. He
spoke for half-an-hour or more, and if at first there were any waverers
in the crowd, there were none when he finished. They would have stormed
the Treasury benches that very night. Other speakers followed, and
emphasised the necessity of laying their plaint before Parliament; and in
the end a provisional committee was elected to draw up the petition. The
lines on which the petition to Parliament was to run were to ask for the
appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into their grievances, and
their claims for better pay and improved prospects of promotion, and the
abolition of Sunday labour.
The petition was accordingly prepared, only however to be returned
as not complying with the standing orders of the House. It was soon
framed on more constitutional lines, and again being forwarded through
the approved channel, the petitioners awaited the result with renewed
confidence. There was a weekly subscription among the men; there were
letters to Parliamentary candidates; there were bushels of circulars
openly posted to sitting members, the folding and addressing being done
by volunteers in their spare time in the official retiring-rooms. Further
than this, Booth now sought the co-operation of the provincial men, and
worked night and day, often depriving himself of sleep to prepare and
send the necessary correspondence. No less a number than three million
tiny circulars were dropped in pillar-boxes all over London, and Booth
and his assistants spent hours of their spare time in disseminating by
this means the seed-corn of discontent. Then one morning the Petition
Committee were sent for by the Controller of the London postal service,
and informed that they had incurred the serious displeasure of the
department, as they were exceeding the bounds of a legitimate movement.
They were informed that they had not confined themselves to formulating
a petition to Parliament, but they had become active in fomenting an
agitation throughout the entire service. They were forbidden to act as a
committee, and they were to receive no recognition from their followers,
and they were forthwith to disband themselves without calling any
meeting. Whatever protest or appeal may have been thought necessary to
save the situation was made, but without avail. There was no alternative
but dismissal. The committee was therefore disbanded, and the affairs
wound up, and balance-sheets issued to the men, the reasons being given
for this strategic movement to the rear.