DISSATISFACTION AMONG TELEGRAPHISTS—STARTING A NEW
ORGANISATION—CONFERENCE AT LIVERPOOL—THREATENED TELEGRAPH
STRIKE—THE FAWCETT SCHEME AND THE TELEGRAPHISTS.
Electrical influences had been in the air for some years since the
Manchester outburst, but a feeling partly of timidity partly of apathy
had prevented section joining with section until some time after the
Scudamore scheme. Nothing seemingly was done by the department to attempt
to check the wholesale exodus from the service. One consequence of this
“great retreat,” as it was called, was that those who remained to supply
their places were worked the harder. Nominally the hours were eight, but
fourteen, fifteen, and even seventeen hours were commonly worked in a
single day when the exigencies of the service demanded it.
The Scudamore scheme of classification, which should have stood
self-condemned by this time even from a departmental point of view, was
nevertheless tenaciously clung to by the officials as a parent clings
to its child. Yet opposed as they were to all modification towards
bettering the condition of the telegraphists, it was at length driven
home to the authorities that something was needed to allay the daily
growing discontent caused mainly by this detested scheme. But only a
slight modification was made, and that with timidity and reluctance. The
Scudamore system had egregiously failed of its purpose, but its authors
were yet slow to see it. Not even the patent fact that it was false
economy and a waste of public profits to spend large sums in training
telegraph operators who, one out of every three, ultimately took their
knowledge and experience elsewhere, was sufficient to convince them.
The improvement that they were at last compelled to make consisted of
a sixpence increase in the year—an eighteenpence increment instead of a
shilling—and one or two barriers to promotion were removed. But tinkering
and botching of this kind were of no avail in mitigating the real sterner
hardships and injustices for which “Scudamore’s Folly” was responsible.
When it was seen that the department were bent on doing nothing further,
the most cautious became indifferent to consequences, and their loyalty
to the public service was put to the severest strain. Men who before had
held back, with no stomach for agitation in any shape or form, now began
to feel that it was their duty to take up arms in the common cause; the
most conservative felt that what they were risking was scarcely worth
preserving.
The dissatisfaction became so general and so acute towards the beginning
of 1880 that it was evident it could no longer be kept within bounds.
That the Post-Office had persistently ignored what was averred to be a
direct instruction of the Legislature as signified in the particular
clause of the Telegraph Act of 1868, was the mainspring of the agitation
of this period. On that clause the hopes of the telegraph service were
centred, and the renewed agitation which was now to commence was mainly
to be directed towards the attainment of this object and the fulfilment
of this clause. Great uneasiness had existed among telegraph clerks
for some time with regard to their position and future prospects; but
it was not till the beginning of December 1880 that their grievances
found open expression; and only then in isolated petitions from various
offices, which failed to secure attention. The third-class clerks of
Birmingham had endeavoured, by means of correspondence in the _Civil
Service Gazette_ and communication with other towns, to establish an
understanding as to a plan of future action among telegraph clerks
throughout the country. These efforts were, however, only partly
successful, few towns responding to the call to co-operate.
The seed had so far fallen on stony ground, but not so at Liverpool.
An article from the _Civil Service Gazette_ being received there from
Birmingham on 26th November, the question of co-operation was placed
before the staff for consideration. A meeting was held the following
evening, and after a lengthy discussion it was unanimously decided to
enter upon vigorous action and rally to the assistance of Birmingham.
A committee and officers were appointed, and a correspondence at once
opened with other large towns to ascertain what steps had already been
taken towards united action. These inquiries this time elicited a ready
and hearty response, which far exceeded the most sanguine expectation,
and it was safe to conjecture that a plan of campaign was now really
possible. The movement, if such it might be called, had up to that
moment been purely a third-class one, and it was now established on a
broader and more comprehensive basis. The _Civil Service Gazette_ was
more than ever used for ventilating their grievances. But confusion
ensued from the many and multifarious schemes proposed; and this only
forced home the conviction which had been slowly growing, that the
ranks should be brought into proper line, and that a few should assume
a recognised command, and that they should have a workable base at one
of the large town offices, from whence proposals might be put forward
for general adoption. Liverpool, being in the first line of importance
and convenient as a centre, in conformity with a generally-expressed
desire, therefore consented to take up the position of premier and
pioneer. After mature deliberations on all available suggestions cognate
to the work before them, Liverpool issued a circular to every office
in the kingdom, and branches were instituted everywhere. Fresh offices
flocked to the new standard every day, and the movement developed with
astonishing rapidity. Not an important office, with the exception of two,
held aloof. The metropolitan offices added new columns of support to
the rapidly-increasing structure; London and the provinces were at last
welded into one.
Their progress had, however, been not altogether unchecked, for in some
quarters the authorities, looking askance on the strongly-advancing tide,
in a futile manner tried to resist it by bringing pressure to bear on
particular prominent men. But the feeling had gained ground too rapidly;
the fire was alight, and had taken hold of the entire service by this
time, and as fast as the official foot sought to stamp it out in one
quarter it reappeared in another. At Sheffield and Cardiff there was some
little trouble, and a few were made the sufferers for their progressive
efforts; but the telegraphists everywhere else proved equal to all the
coercion that was brought to bear on them.
By this time they were not wanting for public friends, and many members
of Parliament, who had expressed their surprise at the low wages and
poor prospects held out to telegraphists, some thirty or forty of
them, had voluntarily offered to do what was possible for them in the
House of Commons when the time came. Prominent among those members
of Parliament who had guaranteed their support were Mr. Monk—who
years before had obtained for postal servants the enjoyment of the
franchise—Mr. Macliver, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, Mr. Joseph Cowen, Mr.
Jacob Bright, Lord Sandown, Lord Charles Hamilton, and Mr. (afterwards
Sir) Stafford Northcote; while Mr. John Bright and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain
had also expressed sympathy and were interesting themselves on behalf of
their Birmingham constituents. Added to this phalanx of Parliamentary
support, the press had warmly taken up the telegraphists’ cause; and
there was scarcely a paper of importance that had not from time to time
some reference to the agitation, and commented on the moderation and
reasonableness of the claims put forward by the men. There was also a
petition from the members of the London Stock Exchange on behalf of the
men to the Postmaster-General, which bore 2000 signatures.
Professor Henry Fawcett himself, who had now become Postmaster-General,
had led them to believe, in a speech at Manchester in January, that
they might expect the fullest justice at his hands, and had promised to
carefully consider their petitions. But one and all felt that it was
necessary to strengthen the hands of the Postmaster-General, however
liberal his intentions might be. They knew, and their public friends
knew, that there was a power behind the throne which would have to be
reckoned with.
The flowing tide of discontent, swollen by numberless tributaries from
all over the United Kingdom, emptied itself into Liverpool on the
15th and 16th January 1881. On those two days the first conference of
telegraph clerks was held, and from then was to date the progress of the
real telegraph movement.
The success, so far, of the telegraphists’ agitation, and its being
brought so rapidly to this important stage, was due for the most part
to one man, Norman, now a telegraphist of Bristol, transferred from
Liverpool in 1871.
Norman was a distinct personality, and from the first moment in 1871,
when discontent became rife, he had been an influence. He, in conjunction
with Ashden, Mulholland, Ryan, and others, it was who brought about the
earlier agitation. Originally himself a Liverpudlian, he had been made
to suffer for the part he took on that occasion by being transported
to Bristol. In Liverpool he was on his native heath once more, and he
was destined to take the lead for some time henceforth. He had had no
difficulty with a few others, Kellamay, Brighton, and Alvine, in setting
fire to Bristol. He could not be classed as an eloquent speaker, yet he
nearly always convinced; his well-measured tones always carried their
point. His organising capacity was that of a general. He was a character
eminently trusted, and easily begot a feeling of security among his
followers. At Bristol there had been some doubts among the juniors that
if this agitation were entered on the “pre-transfer” men might try only
for a satisfactory settlement of their own case to the detriment of
the juniors, and some little friction seemed likely; but Norman simply
gave one word of assurance, and all had such faith in him that perfect
unanimity was restored.
This conference at Liverpool, which he had been so instrumental in
bringing about, was to shape their future, and Norman was to point the
way. A common programme was decided on; a permanent Telegraphists’
Association was decided on, and the work of formulating a national
petition was put into the hands of the Liverpool committee. A permanent
association was agreed on as the outcome of this first conference of
telegraph clerks; but it is a little curious to note that even Norman,
whose original proposal it was, displayed some hesitation in the
open adoption of the trades-union principle. It might be called an
association for mutual benefit, or anything they chose, said Norman, “but
whatever shape it might take, it must be as broad as possible, so that
the department could not say, ‘You have a trades union.’” Even Heald of
Manchester, one of the strike agitators, and a man who had suffered for
his temerity on that occasion, took the view that to form a trades union
of telegraphists would be to forfeit the support of the public, whose
interests were so closely allied to those of the department. In this year
of 1881, when trades unionism recognised as such reared its head among
every class of labour and was not ashamed, they as Government servants
did not deem it wise to inscribe so much as its name on their banner.
Bound as they were, almost, to accept it in spirit and essence, such was
their conception of the public’s requirements in the matter, and such
their inclination to make concession to this old-fashioned sentiment
indulged in by so many of their Parliamentary supporters, that they felt
it would be imprudent to distinguish their movement by any label likely
to offend such a prejudice. They were progressive enough in principle.
They had men among them who had suffered in the cause of progress, and
who were willing to do so again; but they were not yet prepared to go
the length of the postal agitators of a past decade, who had openly
proclaimed themselves by joining with the London Trades Council. There
were some among them who, indeed, had doubts about the legality of
Government servants doing so in any case. So far as any such doubt was
entertained, it was possibly a survival of that feeling which had caused
the telegraphists of 1871 to refuse the offer of a sum of £1000 for the
prosecution of Mr. Frank Ives Scudamore for suspending men for forming an
association.
Again, it had to be remembered that they were claiming to be classed as
Lower Division clerks of the Civil Service as embraced by the terms of
the Playfair scheme, and, as they conceived it, confirmed by an Order
in Council in 1876. The arguments in support of this claim seemed most
valid, and they had the authority of eminent counsel in support of their
ambitious though, after all, reasonable claim. It was, therefore very
natural, perhaps, that while they endorsed and accepted the principle,
they should hesitate to weaken their case by avowedly adopting its ritual
and its garb. Whether they were fully justified in so thinking is another
matter, and it is the fact that has to be recorded.
It was not that Norman and those associated with him had not sufficient
sympathy with the principle or the necessary courage to proclaim the
fact. It was only that they were not as yet certain of their followers,
who were made up of men of every shade of opinion, or of the advisability
of calling a spade a spade. Yet they were to have their trades union
just the same; and from the first moment of its being launched some few
months later, in December 1881, the whole organisation was to be run on
trades-union lines. But up to the present they had done no more than
agree as to the necessity of a permanent society; its actual formation
must wait a little longer.
The one immediate outcome of the first Liverpool conference was the
drawing up of a united petition, setting forth for the first time
concisely and clearly their various claims. There were five principal
grievances enumerated, together with the reasons for their removal.
The first grievance complained of was the inadequate salary, and the
hindrance to promotion given by classification. The second was as to the
irregular as well as inadequate mode of payment for overtime; the third
complained of was that there was no special payment made for Sunday,
Good Friday, or Christmas Day duties; and it was therefore asked that
these holidays be paid for as overtime. The fourth complained of was
the insufficient annual leave of absence; and the fifth complained of
the insufficient subsistence allowance to clerks employed away from
home on special or relief duties. This petition was signed by every
office of importance in the kingdom, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, and
Birmingham taking the lead in the number of signatures; and it was then
presented in the beginning of February. With far greater expedition than
they had hoped for, the Postmaster-General, Mr. Fawcett, intimated his
willingness to discuss the points with a deputation of telegraphists.
Accordingly, on the 15th March 1881, a deputation of telegraph clerks,
including their leading man, Norman, was received by Mr. Fawcett. It was
on this occasion that the real strength of Norman was well displayed.
The accredited orator of the telegraphists’ movement, Michael O’Toole,
was present; but it does no injustice to him to say that Norman’s
closely-reasoned statement, made up principally of facts and figures
which were incontrovertible, must have been more convincing to Mr.
Fawcett than were O’Toole’s more brilliant pyrotechnics. Instead of being
allowed to state their grievances unreservedly, however, they found that
the supporters and advisers of the Postmaster-General would allow them
only to answer questions. Even the brilliant O’Toole was told that he was
“not answering questions, but making a speech.”
The interview from which so much had been expected was therefore not
deemed satisfactory. The deputation found that they had to impress
and convince not only Mr. Fawcett, but the permanent officials, who
were numerously represented, and who considerably hampered freedom of
discussion by their insisting that certain questions only be answered.
The men desired to plead their own case in their own fashion as they had
been invited to, but it was seen that Mr. Fawcett’s honourable desire
was being quietly and firmly overruled, so that the interview terminated
without many of the very necessary explanatory statements being
introduced as was intended.
The disaffection grew apace, and a consciousness of their strength and
the justice of their demands rendered them reliant. The agitation was
renewed with increased activity. Mr. Macliver and other M.P.’s rallied
to their support. Numerous meetings were held all over the country,
while the sympathy of the press and the public gave a character and an
importance to their movement that could not much longer be ignored by
the Government. The service was swept from end to end by a hurricane of
discontent that had had no parallel even in the postmen’s agitation of a
few years before. The telegraphists were angered, and anger was becoming
defiance. It was becoming a question as to how much longer they could be
kept within bounds.
Mr. Fawcett, true to his democratic instinct, felt the greatest
reluctance in imposing restrictions on the right of free public
meeting among postal servants. His attention had been drawn, both
by the officials and in the House of Commons, to reports of public
meetings of postal and telegraph employés, and he expressed himself
cognisant of these proceedings, at the same time intimating that it was
not his intention to interfere or to visit any official punishment on
those who had taken a prominent part. Undoubtedly some of the platform
utterances of this period were rather extreme, and the distinguished
Postmaster-General was not kept in ignorance of the fact. His forbearance
was that of a strong and courageous man, and he probably felt that
the best reply he could give to all the far-fetched assertions of the
impatient army under his control was to presently offer them the scheme
which he was then so busily preparing.
But meeting followed meeting and protest followed protest, till the
blind, badgered Postmaster-General felt that he was at last face to
face with the stern reality of a threatened strike. Then for the first
time he uttered a cry of resentment. They ought to have learnt by this
time that the delay was not due to any neglect of his; they ought to
have known by this time that he who had allowed the utmost freedom both
in petitioning and public meeting, who lost no opportunity of finding
out for himself what was wrong, was in reality an enemy of the official
fetishism of which they most complained. In a Post-Office Circular issued
March 30, 1881, he strongly animadverted on the extreme course they were
pursuing, and the manner in which the facts of the recent interview
had been distorted by several members of the deputation. He maintained
that he had never made any intimation that he would receive them alone
without the presence of the permanent officials; that it would have been
contrary to all practice in the public service had the principal officers
of the department not been present; and, as he had stated elsewhere, the
object of the interview was simply to furnish him with such additional
information as he might desire to receive. He expressed his strong
disapprobation of their impatience and their method of showing it, but at
the same time he conveyed a promise that nothing would prevent him from
“doing full justice to the case of the telegraphists generally.”
The very severe rebuke contained in Mr. Fawcett’s circular to the postal
telegraphists was by many among them felt to be in nowise undeserved, and
being administered publicly did not tend to enhance the movement at the
time, alienating as it did some amount of public sympathy. The honesty
of purpose of the Postmaster-General was generally recognised, and his
rebuke, coupled with an unequivocal promise to do them justice within
reasonable time, somewhat restrained the more ardent among the agitators.
The reflection that this blind philosopher and statesman was grappling
with an immense difficulty and a complicated problem, affecting thousands
of others besides telegraphists, demanding time, patience, insight, and
judgment, at last sobered their impatience. For the most part they came
to acknowledge they had been too impetuous, though a number regarded the
reproof as unmerited.
Mr. Fawcett kept his promise honourably, and on June 18, 1881, his
scheme for improved pay and revised classification, covering both the
telegraph and postal sides of the service, was issued. It was then seen
how stupendous must have been his task. While a threatening and angry
crowd without were demanding immediate redress, he was now patiently and
busily preparing proposals for their contentment, and now battling with
the Treasury on their behalf, and to get those proposals accepted. He had
accomplished a great task, and in the circumstances the telegraphists
felt that deep gratitude was due to him. As he had been the very first
to deal with the postal side of the question from a truly statesmanlike
point of view, so he had been the first to approach the telegraphist
difficulty in the same manner. The application of the Fawcett scheme
to the telegraphists brought them immediate and material benefits, and
gave them a status and a better-defined position as Government servants.
The defects of the late Scudamore scheme were greatly diminished, but,
needless to say, the improved scale of pay was even better appreciated
than the improved prospects of promotion, while a more equitable rate
of payment for overtime, and a reduction of night attendance to seven
hours, payment for Christmas Day and Good Friday, constituted the more
acceptable features of Mr. Fawcett’s measure for the telegraphists.
FAWCETT SCHEME, 1881 (TELEGRAPHISTS)
PROVINCES
MALES. FEMALES.
_Second Class._ _Second Class._
12/-, 14/-, 16/-, by 1/6 to 12/-, 14/-, 16/-, by 1/6 to
30/-, 33/-, 36/-, or 38/-, 23/-, 24/-, 25/-, or 26/-,
according to class of office. according to class of office.
_First Class._ _First Class._
40/-, by 2/- to 50/-. 27/-, by 1/6 to 32/-.
LONDON
MALES. FEMALES.
_Second Class._ _Second Class._
12/-, 14/-, 16/-, £45, by £5 10/-, 12/-, 14/-, by 1/- to
to £100. 17/-; then by 1/6 to 27/-.
_First Class._ _First Class._
£110, by £6 to £140. 28/-, by 1/6 to 34/-.
_Senior Class._
£150, by £8 to £190.
The concessions brought to them by the Fawcett scheme were evidently
the result of much hard work and strong endeavour on Mr. Fawcett’s
part. Every one felt that he had been animated by an honest desire to
fairly meet them, and for such endeavours and such desire on his part
they expressed their gratitude and thanks. But at the same time it
was universally felt that he had to a great extent been balked in his
intention to accord them full justice. They were sincerely grateful
to him for his manly and honest treatment of their demands; but they
knew that Mr. Fawcett’s hands were tied, that his liberty of action
was circumscribed, and that what he had obtained for them had been
strenuously contended for and grudgingly conceded. In high quarters
the scheme was regarded as a generous one all round, and it is perhaps
doubtful that the recommendations of Mr. Fawcett, if made by a lesser
man and other than a Professor of Political Economy, would have been
entertained and accepted. So that, in so far as it fell short of meeting
their demands, they blamed Mr. Fawcett less than an unkind fate and
the permanent officialdom in league with a suspicious and parsimonious
Treasury.
As it was, however, they might have been prepared to accept the few flies
in the ointment but for their discerning a disposition on the part of
the authorities to whittle down at every opportunity the most acceptable
and valued concessions contained in the scheme. Next to the improved
wage-scales, perhaps one of the most highly-prized boons it gave them
was that of reducing the night duty from eight to seven hours. But it
had scarcely been conceded ere it was filched back from them with the
declaration that “night” only meant from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M. The ungenerous
spirit in which the benefits of the Fawcett scheme were applied to the
telegraphists taught them to examine into their bargain a little more
closely. The result was they found many things wanting, and the absence
of which convinced them that they were justified in continuing the
agitation. It was acknowledged that Mr. Fawcett intended to place them
on an equality with the postal staff in the matter of preferment, but
it was contended that it was not done. It was pointed out that there
was an apparent similarity of wages, but that it was more apparent than
real. While it was admitted that Mr. Fawcett’s evident intention was to
confer lasting benefits on both branches of the service, events would
show that his retention of the discredited system of classification meant
leaving to his successors a legacy of strife between them and their
subordinates. Failing as the Fawcett scheme did to entirely eradicate
the malignant growth of classification introduced by Mr. Scudamore, this
scheme could not be accepted as a permanent remedy. By its operation,
it was maintained, their rightful increments towards the maximum would
be artificially arrested by class barriers. The effect would be to bar
them from attaining a reasonable wage within a reasonable time, and they
declared that they better required a present living wage than the far-off
prospect of reaching £400 a year at the moment of being forced through
old age to retire from the service. Such a “prospect” was nothing more
than a cruel _ignis fatuus_ while this delusive system of classification
was sustained.
One curious result of the Fawcett scheme was that the telegraphists
declared that they were not placed on an equality with the postal
side, as was intended by the spirit and letter of it, while the postal
agitators a little later adopted similar arguments to prove that they
had not been placed on an equality with the telegraphists, as was also
intended.
Dissatisfaction with their position in the service, despite the late
scheme, gradually became acute once more among the telegraphists. On July
17, 1881, one month from the issuing of Mr. Fawcett’s intended remedy and
stop-gap for further agitation, a conference held at Liverpool resolved
that a permanent organisation covering the whole of the United Kingdom
was an absolute necessity to prevent further encroachments upon them
and to preserve what little they had already gained. December 3, 1881,
saw the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association launched into existence.
Immediately from all over the country support was forthcoming, the
greater part of the provincial offices rallying round the standard set up
at Liverpool.
Mr. Fawcett, as may be imagined, was not pleased at the manner in which
his well-intended scheme was received by the telegraphists, but he met
all criticism and all opposition with that unflinching courage of the
philosopher which was his chiefest trait. An utterance made by him at
this period, when speaking at Hackney, November 2, 1881, affords an
interesting glimpse into his mind on this question. On that occasion he
said, “All experience shows that the sense of wrong remains long after a
grievance has been redressed and an injustice remedied.”
Whether or not the grievances had been redressed and the injustices
remedied, as he honestly intended they should be so far as lay in
his power, certainly the original sense of wrong was to remain long
afterwards. This surviving sense of wrong, Mr. Fawcett probably hoped,
would gradually die out as his remedy applied its healing balm. But it
was to survive longer than he anticipated, and to be fostered till it
developed into almost a passionate outburst which, in a few years to
come, another equally great and strong man, Mr. Raikes, had eventually to
calm and temporarily check by yet another measure of relief.