INTRODUCTION OF BOY LABOUR—CONDITIONS OF SERVICE—DEATH OF
COMBINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES—POSTAL HELOTISM.
In the meantime, as if to contemptuously show that the agitating sorters
could be dispensed with at any time, or their work done by child labour,
the authorities, when the halfpenny post started in 1870, introduced a
number of lads recruited mostly from boys leaving school. This was the
introduction of the boy-sorter system, and while it presently assisted
the department to play off against the men who were fighting for a better
wage and other improvements, it efficiently furthered that principle of
economy which was to be the all and end-all of those who governed. The
department was henceforth to be run on commercial lines more than ever
it had in the past; the more profit the great machine produced the more
it might. The introduction of the boy-sorter system was yet another
experiment in levelling down, and yet a further depreciation of their
work, for which twenty years before the respectable salaries of clerks
were paid. It was justified in so far as it provided an outlet for the
telegraph messengers later on, whose only chance hitherto had been to
go as postmen; but that economy was almost the sole object with the
authorities, was almost proved from the miserable wage that was offered
these boys. Ostensibly, they were brought in to do the rough routine
work of assisting the sorters, and of carrying bags and gathering in the
correspondence for disposal. But in a very short while they were, in
addition to these menial tasks, put to the more arduous and responsible
duties of sorting, and work almost identical with that of the ordinary
sorters. For this these boys received six shillings a week—errand-boys’
wages. And the men who had been through all the rough times of the
service for ten, fifteen, and twenty years past were still agitating for
better wages and better conditions of work. This, to an extent, was the
answer of the authorities. The introduction of boy labour to displace men
discontented with their conditions was the best card they had yet played,
and one which they calculated to check the further operations of the
sorters, at least. It was not long, however, before there were some signs
of dissatisfaction among the poorly-paid youngsters themselves, besides
which it was becoming difficult to obtain the required number, and it
was soon necessary to raise their wages to nine shillings a week. The
responsibilities of their work increased proportionately, and soon there
was little appreciable difference between the work attached to them and
that on which ordinary sorters in the Newspaper Branch had been engaged.
The only sop that was thrown to the overworked and underpaid stampers and
sorters of this branch of the service was their being allowed to present
their sons as candidates for the vacancies; though whether it was that
they evinced too little sympathy with a scheme which might mean their own
undoing, or that they were too disgusted themselves with the conditions
of the service to think of bringing in their boys to share such
prospects, is not certain; but few availed themselves of the opportunity.
Not even the rise in wages to nine shillings a week for boys from fifteen
to seventeen years of age, constantly surrounded with temptation to
pilfer, and who were more or less saddled with work and responsibilities
for which more wages had been paid only a short time previously, was any
too generous for a profit-making public department. The boy sorters were
emboldened to draw up a respectful petition urging a claim for a further
improvement in pay. The petition was intercepted by a minor official,
who smelt sulphur in it at once, and several of the poor boys were
forthwith charged with leaguing themselves with the devil, or something
as discreditable. It was enough for grown-up men with wives and families
to ask for such things as higher wages and more considerate treatment,
but when infants in the service followed such a bad example it was time
to nip such juvenile ambitions in the bud. Possibly this little postal
Bumble, dressed in brief authority, who thus undertook to protect the
department from the predatory designs of these youngsters, fancied that
a higher wage might demoralise them, or tempt them to marry too early. A
number of these poor little Oliver Twists were admitted to examination
singly, and some were so frightened at the enormity of the offence of
asking for more that they timidly confessed on the spot that their humble
petition had actually been indited by a grown-up sorter named Jacobs. The
self-important little official gasped with astonishment, and prepared to
reach for his official club. The delinquent, Jacobs—“Gentleman Jacobs”
was his sobriquet among the force—was peremptorily sent for, and an
immediate written explanation demanded of him as to why he did, on a
certain date, in direct contravention of printed Rule No. 01565, incite
and encourage these junior officers of her Majesty’s postal service to
dissatisfaction in regard to their prospects and pay. Jacobs did as
requested, justifying himself on three sheets of foolscap. It was not the
incriminating “explanation” the official wanted. Jacobs flatly refused to
state anything but the truth about the matter. If the over-zealous little
official committed the folly of sending the case to the authorities,
nothing came of it.
The trifling incident is mentioned only to show how subordinate officials
with exaggerated notions of their duties may sometimes earn for the
authorities even more criticism among the rank and file than they merit.
The boy sorters afterwards were given twelve shillings a week, which
was a little more in accordance with their value to the department. The
treatment of the boy sorters reflected but little credit on those who
were responsible. Those who were not harried out of the service after
enduring its hardships for six months or so frequently survived only to
become premature wrecks, eventually disqualified by the Medical Branch.
Lads fresh from the country entering with high expectations, and it
might be said almost lured into the service under false pretences, often
fell early victims to consumption through their having to provide for
themselves on their meagre wage. In too many cases insufficient food, the
vitiated atmosphere of the sorting-office, the unnatural hours of duty,
the bullying and the nerve-strain put on them all told, and even left
their traces on them in after years. It was not to be wondered at that
so many of those who had been boy sorters were almost as soon as they
reached early manhood claimed by the White Death, consumption.
It was not long before this principle of cheap labour was further
extended, and the existing sorting force threatened to be swamped by
young recruits fresh from the ranks of the telegraph messengers or from
school. Doubtless it was partly owing to this as well as to the bitter
experience of the cruel dismissals that the men of the sorting force
continued to bear their grievances in silence. From that time forward
there had been a period of stagnation; the grumblings of discontent were
reduced to a discreet whisper, and anything of the shape of agitation was
now discredited. The sorters had not easily forgotten the sharp lesson
that had been taught them, the risk they had undergone, and the ordeal
through which they had passed. They knew they were now reduced by that
defeat to the condition of serfs, that they were slowly being deprived
of every right and privilege which goes to make the proud boast of an
Englishman. It was either submitting to this or risking, almost with the
certainty of further defeat, the bread and butter of their wives and
little ones. The department had scored; but it had not entirely scotched
the serpent of discontent. If the silence and inactivity of the men
were thought to indicate contentment and a cheerful acceptance of the
situation, the authorities were mistaken. Nowhere but in a Government
department, either in England or Russia, could such a state of things
exist. In no English workshop, where men had a trade in their hands and
a kit of tools to call their own, would they have submitted for so long
to the treatment meted out to them. For some considerable time after
the dismissals, the remainder of the force were treated like would-be
recalcitrants on whom it was necessary to keep a sharp eye, and on whom
it was as necessary to inflict humiliation for their own good. Their
convenience in the matter of sudden compulsory summonses for extra duty
was entirely ignored, while the pay for such extra duty was unfair
in the extreme. Commonly at the behest of a minor official they were
compelled to stay beyond their legitimate time without any pay whatever.
The growing intolerance of the smaller authorities towards the force
gave encouragement to the minor superiors to exercise to the full their
proclivity for bullying and browbeating the men on the smallest pretext.
And the boy sorters themselves met with the least consideration of all.
Being the juniors they were made to bear a more than proportionate share
of the hardships of their elders. Scores of them left after a few months
of it; and as many more had their dismissals procured by the merest
whim of an overseer, or the caprice of a tyrannical inspector. The boy
sorters had proved very handy to the department, both as a foil to the
possibility of further agitation among the men and as an economical
experiment; but they despised them; or if they did not actually despise
them they allowed others to, and were utterly indifferent to the manner
of their treatment. The majority of these lads were of an age too tender
to be withdrawn safely from the influence of the home circle; yet many
of them had only their bare wage of twelve shillings a week to enable
them to lodge, clothe, feed, and keep themselves honest upon. They were
of an age when the growing lad has all the appetites of the man, yet the
authorities did not think it unfair to expect them to keep up a certain
amount of respectability of appearance. The chance of supplementing their
income was that of a compulsory summons in the middle of the night,
or rather four o’clock in the morning, and from this hour till nine
o’clock, five hours in all, performed before their actual day’s duty
commenced; they were remunerated with one shilling, paid the following
week. Whatever excuse was to be made for the East-End sweater, openly and
professedly exploiting juvenile labour, there was none such to be made
for a Government department like the Post-Office.
So indifferent to the barest claims of humanity had the officials calling
themselves the authorities now become that the men could barely call
their souls their own. If they were allowed an ownership over their
spiritual being, that was only to suit theoretical requirements, but in
actual fact their personal liberty was more circumscribed than ever.
They had always to remember that they were postal officials first,
and men and husbands and fathers afterwards. Away from the office or
otherwise they were to regard themselves as still on duty, at least when
off duty they were to hold themselves always in readiness to respond to
a telegram summoning them to the office; consequently they must never
make appointments, except at their own risk. A man failing to respond
to the call of extra duty was not only set down as a shirker and one
unwilling to serve the department in an emergency, but he was very often
punished and insulted into the bargain. Superintendents and the “heads of
departments” in those days particularly were allowed unchecked to give
fullest vent to their own personal predilections, their own particular
likes and dislikes, and if it was that they were not allowed a larger
discretion than in these days, it was mostly due to the fact that the men
had no means of resenting such barefaced assertions of autocracy. While
the men bore it without a combined protest, a superintendent of a branch
might, if he chose, become a little despot, with the power to render
miserable the hundreds of men under his control. For as is the master so
are his stewards and bailiffs. The example set by one higher official is
eagerly imitated by his immediate subordinates, and those over whom they
have control are the sufferers.
That the apathy of the force in respect to combination for mutual
interest was taken advantage of by their immediate superiors, was shown
in many curious and significant ways. Excuses for late attendance or for
non-compliance with regulation, which would be graciously accepted now,
were then often treated with open derision and contempt. A superintendent
might either call a man with a ready excuse a downright liar to his face,
or he might, in his desire to be strictly official, display such an utter
want of feeling as to be guilty of conduct almost bordering on brutality.
It was the vogue of one official of this period to regulate everything
strictly according to rule. He thought himself too loyal a servant of the
department even to exercise that little discretion vested in him by his
superiors. Besides, he thought it was saving himself a deal of trouble to
do so, and the muttered imprecations of the men or their hidden scowls
never entered into his calculations. He never deviated a hair’s-breadth
from the rule laid down. If by an unhappy mischance there had been a
misprint in the rule-book or instructions to postmasters and others, that
a man found absenting himself from the sorting-office for more than the
usual period, should be “hanged” instead of only “suspended,” he would
have made no inquiry. He would have taken it for granted and had the poor
wretch hanged from the gallery forthwith in a coil of the red-tape so
dear to his heart. He was not the only one of his tribe. It was not that
the higher authorities either directly encouraged or were fully cognisant
of this sort of conduct on their part; if they did not know, they did
not want to know; these were trifles that did not concern them. Such
things have concerned them only when the men’s murmurs rose to a pitch
high enough to compel their attention. The men had ceased for so long to
murmur openly that perhaps the authorities were not so much to blame for
allowing petty tyranny on the part of the smaller to go unchecked.
While the men remained unorganised amongst themselves, the officials
could see no wrong in putting fresh impositions on those under their
control. The old device of forcing the men on extra duty, without pay
or return of any kind, was more freely resorted to than ever. The eight
hours’ day remained virtually unrecognised, and those who had attended
at four or half-past four in the early morning were more often than not
imprisoned like galley-slaves at the sorting-tables an hour, sometimes
two hours, beyond the time when they should have been free to go home to
obtain rest, and prepare once more for the afternoon’s duty.
The officials profited little by the experience of that occasion a year
or so previous when the men, goaded beyond the limits of forbearance,
took the law into their own hands and boldly broke through the
imprisoning doors, and asserted their liberty as free men in a free
country. These disgraceful rushes for liberty—disgraceful only on the
part of the authorities, who sought to imprison them like convicts,
forgetful that they were public servants in the service of the most
freedom-loving country in the world—were several times repeated. And the
men who dared to protest in this primitive fashion, which was now the
only one left to them, were as frequently threatened and punished. The
officials apparently thought that by singling out a few individuals here
and there they would terrorise the rest into an acceptance of this unjust
system of forced and compulsory labour without pay, and bolster up their
own authority. Whatever extra duty that was paid for was paid for on the
lowest scale possible, and, coupled with that, was in most cases rendered
compulsory between most inconvenient hours, so as to deprive the men
of either rest or recreation. After completing the half of their day’s
work they would find themselves, perhaps on their arrival home, suddenly
summoned back on duty right in the middle of the day, between 10 A.M. and
2 P.M. This, it will be seen, meant a serious loss of time to them, as
they were on duty again at 4.30 P.M., and for all this they were rewarded
with nothing better than payment equal to the “docker’s tanner”—sixpence
per hour.
There were two or three abortive attempts at rebellion against this
cruel system, but protests were vain in convincing the authorities
of its hardship or unfairness. The old official dictum that the
permanence of their employment as Government servants amply compensated
for every shortcoming, continually weighed with the authorities, and
was as continually advanced against the claims of the men. Because
the department had vouchsafed to them something like permanence of
employment, it took to itself the right of imposing any conditions the
caprice of its officials might devise, and of abrogating their menials’
privileges whenever they thought proper. Men who failed from whatever
cause to respond promptly to these domiciliary summonses were severely
reprimanded, and their conduct held in remembrance for use against them
in the future. Moreover, in answer to the respectful complaint that
sixpence an hour was a too unfair remuneration for those at the maximum
of their class, it was pointed out that there was no Treasury grant
sufficient to entitle them to more. But it is significant that on one
occasion when the sorters at last showed a more determined front than
usual by disregarding a peremptory summons of this nature, almost to a
man excusing themselves on the ground that the pay was far too little,
eightpence an hour was granted the following week; and the men wondered
all the more, as the smallest Treasury grant generally took more time
than the proverbial mountain in labour.