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.
For some years after the decline of the agitation of 1872-74 the
letter-carriers were practically quiescent. There was a prolonged hiatus,
not of contentment exactly, but of unvoiced discontent, a restless
slumber, with but an occasional turning and a muttering in their sleep.
It was not till 1887 that the letter-carriers again woke to the full
realisation that they were being overburdened with an accumulation
of old and new grievances, and that the time had come to prepare for
another effort. There was the usual recrudescence of grumblings and
a groping in the semi-darkness, the usual repetition of unrecorded
back-stair and back-room meetings, some misunderstanding as to exactly
what they wanted, and which way they should turn to get their grievances
redressed. They had the disadvantage of being split up into a number of
sections and classes, and there was the danger from the outset of their
being disunited by internal jealousies. It is the man that makes the
movement as much as the movement makes the man. There were a number of
ready champions of the general cause, but when they came to take stock
of the claims of each it was found there was only one man who could be
followed with confidence. This was a young fellow named Dredge, known
familiarly to most of the London letter-carriers as Tom Dredge. He was
a good speaker, with a hearty, bluff manner, and he gave the idea of a
fighter who could carry his point and would not flinch. Dredge set about
organising the letter-carriers at his own office at the North-Western
District Office, and gradually extended the sphere of his operations
to the other districts. In this he was ably assisted by two or three
fellow-postmen acting as delegates from their various centres. The first
meeting of any importance, and the one which mainly decided their future
action, was held at Tolmer’s Square Institute, Drummond Street, N.W., on
July 23, 1887. Dredge was the central figure and the principal speaker;
and from that night the agitation extended to the whole of the London
district postmen, and embraced a considerable number of the suburban men.
The first item on the programme of the new agitation, of course, was
the preparation of a petition setting forth their claims. These were to
include limitation of working day to eight hours, necessity of increased
pay, extra duty to be paid for according to wages; the granting of boots
for all postmen, and lighter clothing for summer wear; equality for all
postmen in London; the resumption of the title of “letter-carrier” in
lieu of “postman”; earlier maximum pay; a minimum of 18s. a week for all
second-class postmen; the abolition of the collection and delivery of
parcels by London postmen; and several other good things, including a
better pension scheme.
The petition was presented, but nothing satisfactory came of it. There
were more meetings, growing in indignation, and Tom Dredge became a
power everywhere among the letter-carriers or, as they were now called,
postmen. They secured the support of Mr. H. L. W. Lawson, M.P., and
he presided over a meeting at Tolmer’s Square Institute, more than a
thousand men of all grades being present. Besides this public countenance
to the efforts of the letter-carriers, his influence on their behalf
was exerted in the House of Commons on several occasions. One result
of Mr. Lawson’s efforts in this direction was obtaining a departmental
committee to examine the question of uniform, concerning which so many
complaints were made. In many ways did the member for St. Pancras assist
the letter-carriers in furtherance of their aims. The public holiday
agitation, which dislocated the telegraph staff at the time, drew forth
the interest of Mr. Lawson, and many were the communications between him
and the Postmaster-General. But the holiday was not granted, nor was
extra pay allowed.
Through him the letter-carriers presented a petition to Mr. Raikes,
praying for a consideration of their case; and the Postmaster-General
intimated that he would do all he possibly could, consistently with the
interests of the public, to meet the wishes of the men. But just when
it was thought that their sails had caught the fair breeze of public
approval, and it was felt their barque was nearing a safe harbour, their
vessel suddenly grounded on a rock. Tom Dredge, the secretary of the
organisation of district and suburban letter-carriers, was pounced on
for a dereliction of official duty, and punished with reduction in the
ranks. The circumstances of the case seem to have been rather harsh, but
being away on sick-leave at the time, it was not till his return to duty
that he felt the full force of the official rebuff. The local postmaster
informed Dredge that the Secretary had advised Dredge’s reduction,
because he had taken a prominent part in the postmen’s agitation for
increase of pay, &c. The Postmaster-General endorsed the recommendation
that he be reduced to the second class of postmen, and instructed that
he be warned that if he continued in the same way he would be dismissed.
The specific charge brought against Dredge was that of writing to the
press on official matters, and for purposes of promoting an agitation, in
contravention of rule.
Mr. Raikes was charged with inconsistency and unnecessarily interfering
with the right of combination among the postal servants; but the
Postmaster-General defended his action, and maintained that he had dealt
leniently in the circumstances. The reduction had been accompanied
with a caution to abstain from such questionable methods of agitation
for the future; but a few months later the secretary of the postmen’s
organisation tempted fate still further, and the end came. A printed
notice had been issued and signed by Dredge calling a mass meeting at
the Memorial Hall, without the proper sanction of the Postmaster-General
having been obtained, and in contravention of Rule 42 of the
regulations. This meeting the Postmaster-General prohibited, but a few
days afterwards, Dredge called a general meeting for the purpose of
discussing matters of departmental control, including the action of the
Postmaster-General. For this he was called on to explain as to why, after
being emphatically cautioned, he had persistently endeavoured to stir up
agitation. His explanation notwithstanding, Dredge was dismissed.
The Postmaster-General’s treatment of this particular case, and
his attitude towards the postmen’s agitation at this period, may
seem strangely in contrast with the indulgence shown towards the
letter-sorters. But it has to be remembered that with the latter body
there was never any attempt to force the right of public meeting before
the rule was relaxed; and besides, they experienced little indulgence at
Mr. Raikes’s hands till some time after the period of Dredge’s dismissal.
It was not till a year after that Mr. Raikes began to mellow in his
demeanour towards the sorters’ agitation.
His mellowing and unbending somewhat towards the growing spirit of trades
unionism in the Post-Office may perhaps be ascribed to expediency as much
as to conviction of its justifiableness. For about this period of 1890
a tidal wave of discontent, it seemed, affected almost every class of
public and Government servants, and threatened to sweep them off their
feet. The spirit of restlessness and discontent not only affected the
police, the telegraphists, the sorters, and the postmen, but it even made
itself felt to some extent in the army. Mr. Raikes had to realise that he
was facing a very delicate and difficult problem, and though he did not
take kindly to his lesson at first, he squared his shoulders and faced
it manfully and tactfully when he saw the cloud about to burst. It was
his duty to play his own game from the departmental side of the board,
and his move consisted in keeping the discontented bodies apart at any
hazards, and this by his tact and good judgment he succeeded in doing. He
was sorry that he was compelled to dismiss Dredge, and perhaps foresaw
the consequences. There was immediately a strong feeling manifested among
the postmen; for Dredge was popular; and though the blow caused them to
retire for a moment to get their wind, they came up in stronger fighting
trim than ever. It was this dismissal really that led up to the formation
of the ill-starred but, for a time, formidable Postmen’s Union. Dredge’s
dismissal was interpreted into a direct attack on the postmen’s right
of combination, and the Chief Office men, who hitherto had been rather
lukewarm towards the agitation led by him, now as a matter of principle
formed square with the Districts. It was decided to form a General
Postmen’s Union, but it was ill managed on misunderstanding from the
start.
In the early part of 1890 the discontent born of a long period of neglect
and refusal to consider their moderate demands reached an acute and
critical stage. The necessity for some sort of an organisation of postmen
was beginning to be recognised among them, and it was then decided to
start the Postmen’s Union. A request privately made by the postmen
themselves to several prominent labour leaders was the means of bringing
it into existence. The Postmen’s Union, doomed to run an exciting
career ending in disaster and failure, was hatched under the wing of
the well-meaning but in this case misguided Labour Union leadership.
Mr. John Burns, with the laurels of the dock strike fresh upon him, had
some little time previously offered his services to form and conduct a
Postmen’s Union; and had his offer been accepted at the time, it is more
than probable that his good sense and tact would have averted one of the
most lamentable catastrophes that ever sullied the pages of labour’s
history. If it was necessary to form the Postmen’s Union at all, it was
as necessary to place the leadership in strong, sensible hands. It was
not so, however; and the opportunity of accepting Mr. John Burns as
leader was lost. And it was lost only because it was feared that Mr. John
Burns would want to exercise a too autocratic sway. Better, perhaps, had
it been so; for, as will be seen, they rushed from one extreme to the
other. They threw over a born and trained labour leader and accepted the
dictates of a weak imitator.
The representations made to the Labour Union were to the effect that
postmen as a body and all postal employés were in a helpless and
disorganised condition; that they dared not take the initiative for fear
of instant dismissal. These representations were accepted, and a meeting
was speedily called on a Sunday, the meeting-place being Clerkenwell
Green. This meeting was called by means of a manifesto published in the
Saturday’s _Star_. There the Postmen’s Union was publicly inaugurated,
its principal sponsors being Messrs. Mahon, Chambers, and Henderson. All
postal employés were invited to join the organisation. The executive,
consisting of Mr. Mahon and the other gentlemen mentioned, announced that
their only desire was to establish the new postal association on a proper
basis, and that when this consummation was effected they would be willing
to leave the postmen to manage their own affairs.
The restrictions as regarded public meetings had already been
considerably relaxed by Mr. Raikes, and from being strictly prohibited
were now allowed under certain conditions. The conditions imposed by Mr.
Raikes were:—
“That notice be given to the local Post-Office authority that such a
meeting was to be held, and where it was proposed to hold it. That
the meeting be confined to Post-Office servants only who are directly
interested in the matters to be discussed. That an official shorthand
writer be present if required by the authorities.”
It was under the operation of this new rule that the letter-sorters’
organisation was publicly inaugurated at the Memorial Hall on February
10, 1890. But the leader of the Postmen’s Union detected in the second
condition imposed by the regulation a direct blow at the right of
combination, and an attempt to deprive the postmen of their accepted
leadership. It was to test as much as to form the Postmen’s Union that
this meeting was called on Clerkenwell Green in June 1890. Mr. Mahon had
been one of the sub-organisers of the late dock strike, and on assuming
authority over the Postmen’s Union he endeavoured to make himself
the accepted mouthpiece of the men’s demands. But whatever qualities
of leadership Mr. Mahon may have possessed, he lacked individuality.
His personality was certainly not Napoleonic; he could deliver a good
address, but there was always a something lacking in the uncommanding
figure in the shabby blue serge suit. He was a thin-featured, pale-faced
man, with a slight red beard, and pale blue eyes. The postmen, however,
wanted an outside leader, and if Mahon was to prove their Messiah of
postal labour they were to make the most of him and obediently follow.
Nevertheless the members seemed possessed by a fear that they were
doing something wrong and might only conduct their affairs in secret;
precautions being taken to prevent the identity of members being freely
known. Both officers and members were known only by numbers; and adhesive
stamps were used to indicate the subscriptions paid; these stamps being
supplied to members to affix them to their cards when they felt free from
espionage. There was but one exception to this extraordinary secrecy; and
that was in the case of Clery, the secretary of the Fawcett Association,
who had become a member from sympathy with their objects. He stoutly
declined to be known by a number, and advised the Postmen’s Union that
they were perfectly within their right in combining openly and without
this element of secrecy. He went further, and wrote a pamphlet on the
subject of postal combination, which was published by Mr. J. McCartney,
a member of the Fawcett Association, and issued from the offices of the
Postmen’s Union.
The postmen seemed so determined on following the dictates of the Labour
Union, and so enamoured of an outside leader, that for the time Dredge,
their quondam secretary, seemed forgotten. The manifesto which had
heralded the birth of the Postmen’s Union invited them practically to
come and have their grievances redressed by men not in the service, who
could not be dismissed for speaking up for them. But the dismissed Dredge
could have done all this as fearlessly and as ably as any of the Union
leaders had he been invited to—and better for the postmen and better for
him had the leadership been at this stage placed in his hands.
The Postmen’s Union had not been called into existence very long before
there was a split in the executive, and the postmen were treated to the
demoralising spectacle of a double-headed leadership—a Girondist and
a Mountain party in miniature. There was a manifesto printed in the
_Evening News and Post_, and signed by Messrs. T. Dredge, Fred Henderson,
and W. Chambers, in which they announced that they had dissociated
themselves from the rest of the executive. W. E. Clery of the Fawcett
Association endeavoured to bring about a _rapprochement_ between the
parties, and Mr. Morrison Davidson, the author, was asked to act as
arbitrator, to which he agreed. The proposal, however, was not carried
out, those remaining on the executive not agreeing to the suggestion.
Messrs. Henderson, Chambers, and Dredge were regarded as having seceded
from the movement by the publication of the manifesto; but this did not
put the matter straight, as, to a very large section of the postmen,
Dredge, Henderson, and Chambers were still the leaders of the movement.
The books and the funds of the Union were, however, still in the hands
of Messrs. Mahon, Donald, and the others, meanwhile maintaining silence
about the split in the camp, and quietly but industriously receiving
subscriptions and enrolling members. Messrs. Chambers and Henderson
set about organising a meeting in Marylebone, to which postmen were
invited to hear a true explanation of the situation and the nature of
the difference between them and their late colleagues. The meeting
was held under the presidency of Mr. Champion, and Mr. John Burns and
Mr. Conybeare, M.P., were present. The latter gentleman was at this
time treasurer of the Union. Mr. John Burns did not mince matters with
anybody, but treated all alike to a helping of strong straight talk and
wholesome advice which, if only remembered and followed, would have
saved them many bitter regrets. It was on this occasion, after the
business of the meeting, that Mr. John Burns definitely allowed it to
be known that he would accept a position on their executive, but that
they would have to approach him. There was some consideration on the
part of some, a further excited meeting, at which Mr. Mahon was present;
but it was found neither party could claim the full confidence of the
postmen, and so it was decided to submit the matter of the disputed
leadership to a commission of inquiry having power to demand all books
and correspondence, &c., and to report on the condition of the Union, and
the trustworthiness of the executive in power. A general meeting was to
be called to hear this report as soon as ready. The commission of inquiry
consisted of three, and Clery, of the letter-sorters’ agitation, was
elected chairman. There was a deal of recrimination between the parties
before the decision of the commission was made known. It was recommended
that the Postmen’s Union executive should sever its connection with the
Labour Union, but that the executive should consist of nine gentlemen not
in the service, and an equal number of postmen. The gentlemen who were
to serve on the executive were to include Mr. Mahon as secretary; Mr.
Conybeare, M.P., as treasurer; Mr. A. K. Donald; Mr. Bennet Burleigh, the
war correspondent and journalist; Mr. John Burns, and Mr. H. H. Champion.
But Mr. Mahon and Mr. Donald objected to Mr. Burns and Mr. Champion being
on the executive. W. E. Clery and his fellow-commissioners were in favour
of these two gentlemen, and only agreed not to press their election out
of consideration to the wishes of Messrs. Mahon, Donald, and Binning, who
had certainly done a deal of rough work in connection with the Union’s
formation. Clery and the rest of the commission had reason afterwards to
regret that they had not persisted in their first decision.
The Postmen’s Union was accordingly taken out of the hands of the Labour
Union, and its control was taken over by a distinct executive. Mr. Burns
and Mr. Champion withdrew their offer of services, and allowed Mr. Mahon
to take the helm of the clumsy and ill-fitted vessel that required much
clever steering. Those who originally came into the movement only as
friendly helpers were now developed into leaders and masters of the
new organisation. Mr. Mahon now assumed the part of dictator, and the
fact that he was allowed to do so can only be accounted for on the
supposition that the other members of the executive, Mr. Bennet Burleigh
and Mr. Conybeare and the rest, were paying more attention to their
own private business. W. E. Clery meanwhile had used the whole weight
of his influence to induce the postmen’s executive, as represented by
Mr. Mahon, to switch the organisation on to more constitutional lines
of action, but the very attempt at counselling moderation seemed only
to have begotten suspicion regarding the honesty of his intentions.
Mr. Mahon and a few about him were under the impression that the
letter-sorters and the indoor staffs were in duty bound to make common
cause with them, and if only their co-operation could be secured the
walls of St. Martin’s-le-Grand were bound to fall. Had the indoor staffs
of the postal side of the service been induced to join hands, there can
be no doubt that such a federation would have proved very troublesome
to the authorities. But Clery, who was by this time virtual leader of
the sorters’ organisation, seeing that the postmen under their outside
leader were determined on pursuing a heroic course and adopting a policy
of defiance, steadily set his face against any combination of his class
with the Postmen’s Union. Mr. Mahon and many of the postmen themselves
thought it would greatly assist them if the indoor classes could be
induced to join them, and it was sought to set aside the authority of
Clery with his own class by making overtures direct to the sorters. This
was done by a printed manifesto, but Clery thought so little of its
effect that he contemptuously printed it with a few lines of comment
in his own organ, the _Post_, of June 7, 1890. Yet in spite of this
free advertisement there was no response to the appeal of the general
secretary of the Postmen’s Union, and, so far as was known, not a single
sorter joined. The manifesto was a creditable literary production, for
Mr. Mahon could write as well as speak, but the only thing he could
boast of having done in a period of eight months was to have formed “a
rapidly-growing union with a weekly contribution.” From this declaration
it was further gathered that the principal reason for its existing at
all was to assert “the right of public meeting and demonstration,” in
defiance of an official regulation now so modified as to be no longer
regarded as harsh. This was the main point of difference between the
postmen’s policy and that of the sorters. The sorters had won the right
of public meeting fairly, squarely, and constitutionally, and Mr. Raikes
was pleased to acknowledge it; the postmen, as led by their outside
leader, asserted the full right of public meeting without restriction and
without control from headquarters. It was a very proper thing perhaps,
but in the circumstances it was hardly the time of day to demand it.
The sorters, by quietly pursuing constitutional methods, were very
little behind the postmen in point of outside meeting, only in the one
case it was acknowledged as a right and in the other they committed
outlawry, and by so doing injured their own case. The Postmaster-General
was severely autocratic in rule, yet, when properly approached, he had
gone considerably out of the beaten tracks of officialdom in granting
the right of public meeting conditionally. Only a little while longer
and the last shackle was to be knocked off. Yet this did not suit the
postmen’s leader, and his followers were made to think that it could
not be accepted by them. They were betrayed into pursuing the ideal of
an abstract principle in preference to urging their more useful and
legitimate demand for boots and better wages. The boots and other things
to which they were as justly entitled were forgotten in the glamour of
the right of public demonstration. Instead of making do with the farthing
rushlight for the time being, they committed the fatal mistake of running
after the will-o’-the-wisp which was to land them in the morass of
humiliation and disaster.
Finding the leaders of the Postmen’s Union could not be persuaded to
return to the slower but surer methods of constitutional propaganda,
Clery left that body with the intention of devoting himself exclusively
to the work of his own organisation.
By the assertion of the right of public meeting and demonstration it was
thought to force the Postmaster-General to his knees. But it was not to
be. If it was thought that what had been done by Booth in the case of
the famous Cannon Street Hotel and Exeter Hall meetings might again be
done by means of an outside professional agitator, they were mistaken.
True, the earlier public demonstrations were in defiance of official
rules and prohibitions; but these were demonstrations of a united postal
service, of a movement to which scores of the public men of the day had
given their countenance; and Booth and his followers adopted such a means
as the only alternative to holding cooped-up meetings on the official
premises. That was in 1873, and this was in 1890. Circumstances and
conditions had considerably altered since that period, and the right of
free public meeting was already for all workable purposes an accomplished
fact.
Instead of continuing as it started, with the purpose of securing those
material benefits to which postmen were entitled, the Postmen’s Union
very imprudently demanded that their grievances should be laid before the
Postmaster-General by Mr. Mahon, their secretary, personally. As they
ought to have anticipated, this request was refused or ignored; and it
was then that they determined to publicly assert their right to open-air
demonstration. Their meeting-place was again Clerkenwell Green. From
there they fired their shell into St Martin’s-le-Grand. The response was
prompt, and a number of men who had made themselves conspicuous, or whose
names were secretly reported, were suspended, and had to be maintained
by the funds. The postmen’s leader sought to open negotiations with St.
Martin’s-le-Grand, and wrote to the Postmaster-General that the men who
had attended the prohibited meeting would apologise on conditions. The
conditions that Mr. Mahon wished to impose were that all restriction
on the right of public meeting should be withdrawn; that the suspended
men should be reinstated after tendering their apology; that the
Postmaster-General should immediately obtain the sanction of the Treasury
to increase the pay of both established and unestablished postmen, and
that the permanently-employed auxiliary staff should be placed on the
establishment. Mr. Raikes replied, but refused to recognise Mr. Mahon as
the postmen’s representative.
It was decided to further assert the right of public meeting, and a
monster Hyde Park demonstration was organised for Sunday, June 19. The
postmen in mufti turned up in considerable numbers with their friends;
Mr. Mahon and some others made some strong utterances. An official
note-taker, attending by official instruction, was recognised and rather
roughly handled. In consequence of this meeting, and the disturbance that
ensued, another thirteen men were next day suspended from duty.
But the agitation still continued to progress, the men being supported
in their academic demand for a free public platform by a section of
the public press and a few public men. The leader of the Postmen’s
Union now thought that he was in a position to dictate terms to the
Postmaster-General, and repeated the demands of the men in an ultimatum
despatched one afternoon by special messenger. The inclusion of the
request that the Postmen’s Union and its secretary should be officially
recognised, induced Mr. Raikes to ignore it entirely. No reply being
forthcoming the same day, a meeting was held in the evening at the
Holborn Town Hall, Mr. Conybeare and Mr. Cunningham-Graham giving their
support. Nothing, however, was decided on, as meanwhile a rumour had
been disseminated that the suspended men were to be reinstated without
loss of pay. The next day, July 8, was thought by the authorities to
be a critical one, as it was rumoured that the men had separated from
the Town Hall meeting with the understanding that if additional hands
appeared for duty at any of the offices in the morning, the Union men
were not only themselves to turn out, but to turn out the new men also.
This information had been hastily conveyed to the authorities by a
confidential reporter the same night. Preparations for an emergency were
made accordingly, but the day proved uneventful beyond a few protests
against the introduction of strangers at some of the outlying offices.
The City men, however, exhibited a somewhat stronger feeling against the
emergency men. There were excited gatherings in the kitchens, and on one
or two occasions the officials found it difficult to persuade the men
to return to the sorting-offices. No reply being forthcoming from the
Postmaster-General to decide the point immediately in dispute, a few of
the men demanded that he should be sent for. On one of these occasions
three or four of the sorters, carried away by the excitement of the
moment, very mistakenly, it was alleged, promised the postmen the support
of their class. This reaching the ears of the officials, they were
immediately suspended from duty; and of those suspended four ultimately
were dismissed. Two of the sorters so dismissed, who had made themselves
prominent in agitation, Stevens and Baylis, on leaving the service
prospered fairly well; Stevens emigrated and became a Canadian farmer,
and Baylis a local celebrity and a hard-working parish reformer in the
south-east quarter of London.
The Controller, to avoid a more serious disturbance, withdrew the
emergency men for the time. The postal authorities, nevertheless, felt
that they were trembling on the brink of war, and while strong bodies of
men drawn from all classes outside were posted out of sight wherever they
might be required in the event of a sudden open rupture, almost equally
large bodies of police were in readiness to afford them protection if
need be.
The first engagement of the ill-advised and ill-planned campaign was
begun at Mount Pleasant Parcel Depot on the morning of July 9. There
the Union men made an onslaught on the new-comers, and after a short
sharp struggle turned them out of the place. It was but a momentary
victory, however, for which they were to pay dearly by the suspension
and dismissal of a large number during the next few hours. The news of
the outburst at Mount Pleasant heightened the excitement among the men
at the Chief Office, and the discovery that a number of relief men had
been drafted in intensified the feeling. A telegram was sent by the
postmen to Mr. Raikes, stating their intention to suspend work until the
interlopers were dismissed. They were, however, persuaded to proceed with
their duties pending a reply. No reply being forthcoming, the demand for
the dismissal of the objectionable relief men and the withdrawal of the
police was repeated by means of several deputations to the Controller,
but the demand was not acceded to.
Meanwhile, as it was generally understood that the executive of the
Postmen’s Union contemplated the madness of a strike, Clery and
the Fawcett Association did all that was possible to bring their
fellow-servants to a better understanding. Clery had called together
about 150 of the postmen, and suggested that the Postmen’s Union should
definitely abandon the strike policy which they had tacitly adopted
in favour of some means of arbitration afterwards to be settled on,
and a formal proposition embodying this suggestion was duly seconded,
recommending that the executive should consider it. Clery’s motive in
putting forward this idea was twofold: one, and the principal one, being
an earnest desire to save the postmen from pursuing such a suicidal
course as they contemplated; and the other to disabuse their minds that
the letter-sorters intended to join with them. It had been circulated
among them that Clery’s followers were falling away; that both Clery
and Williams had failed to prevent the sorters from joining with them
in large numbers. To more effectually dispose of such misstatements, a
meeting of the sorters was on July 9th hurriedly called in the Foreign
Branch, General Post-Office, and over a thousand men being present, a
resolution was passed expressing sympathy with the just demands of the
postmen, but entirely repudiating and deprecating their strike policy. A
deputation of postmen were invited to be present, and they left to attend
a meeting of the Postmen’s Union held at ten o’clock at Clerkenwell
Green the same evening. Yet the same misstatement was persisted in, and
the newspapers the next morning announced that Mr. Mahon informed his
audience that, at a meeting of the sorting force held in the General
Post-Office that evening, a resolution pledging those present to join
with the postmen was unanimously carried.
At this Clerkenwell Green meeting, which had been called in order to
decide their next step, a huge but mixed crowd of postmen and onlookers
assembled to listen to the fiery denunciation of the Postmaster-General
by Mr. Mahon. The gauntlet was at last thrown down, and it was decided
that they were to refuse to go out on delivery the following morning
until they learnt that the “blacklegs” had been dispensed with.
Needless to say, the authorities were kept well informed of every
utterance and every movement of Mr. Mahon, and almost as quickly as if he
had himself telephoned his uttered intention to St. Martin’s-le-Grand,
the Postmaster-General and his advisers knew the decision come to by the
men by the dictation of their leader. Accordingly the higher officials
spent the whole night and early morning in deciding on their plan of
action. At three o’clock in the morning, the Permanent Secretary and some
other officials presented themselves at the Mount Pleasant Parcel Depot,
and as the men hurried in to sign the attendance books, called them up,
and dismissed nearly a hundred of those who had made themselves prominent
in the previous day’s disturbance. By this sharp and decisive measure it
was hoped that the postmen of the Chief Office would be deterred from
taking the step they had the previous evening decided on, for it was
felt that the attitude of the London postmen generally would be largely
decided by those at St. Martin’s-le-Grand. Arrangements for meeting
the emergency were made accordingly. The impressive moment arrived for
their appearing on duty in the early hours of the 10th only a short time
after the _coup_ at Mount Pleasant. The majority of the men on their way
to work had learnt by various means, from night policemen and from some
of the dismissed men themselves, what had occurred. Those who had not
already learnt of the summary dismissals at Mount Pleasant an hour or so
before were now informed by an official notice confronting them at the
entrance. This notice informed them that similar suspension or dismissal
would follow in the case of men at other offices who, either by refusal
to obey orders or the molestation of those employed under direction of
the Postmaster-General, impeded the public service. The men who, it
seems, had been expected by Mr. Mahon to act automatically in accordance
with the decision arrived at, having no one near them to inspire them,
or to strengthen them in their wavering, and confronted on the one hand
by the official proclamation, and on the other by a strong detachment
of City police, one by one, silently and sheepishly, went in and took
up their various duties. Besides the strong detachment of City police
prepared to deal with them summarily at the first sign of disorder, there
were the relief men ready to take their places. They themselves felt
like a regiment of irregulars without a leader, and there was no General
Mahon present to give them the word of command. And perhaps it was as
well for the general himself and all concerned. The head officials, who
were unseen watching from a distance the entrance of the half-hearted and
demoralised men, drew a sigh of relief, for they felt the real and graver
danger was over.
The news rapidly spread that the City men had gone in to work; and the
effect was spontaneous almost everywhere throughout the districts, except
at the Eastern District Office. The Northern men and the South-Eastern
men, who had taken up a very firm attitude, almost immediately went in.
But at one or two other places, Finsbury Park, and Holloway, the men
refused to go out on delivery, and were promptly suspended. The only
important contingent who took the extreme step in a body were the Eastern
District men. These, reinforced by driblets from other sources, made
up a body of about three hundred, who by a woeful misunderstanding and
want of information had refused to take up their duties. They marched in
order to the General Post-Office, expecting there to find the various
other districts assembled in triumphant defiance. These misguided men
marched in a solid body towards the City, and instead of being greeted
as they expected by the welcoming shouts of the whole of the district
and City postmen in possession of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, found the grim
grey General Post-Office standing amidst solitude and silence. Except
for the police on duty, and the few wondering pedestrians, the streets
were deserted at that early hour; and then, after standing still and
wondering for a few seconds, they understood. It was now close on six
o’clock in the morning; they could hear the steady clank, clank of the
stamping machines within the great crowded hive, and to these men who
had risked all for an ideal, it seemed like intended mockery at their
foolishness. They began to realise that they had grasped at the shadow,
and lost the substance. Impelled by mingled feelings of hope, despair,
and rage, they, as with one accord, wheeled into regimental order,
and circled in a moving body round the General Post-Office. Round and
round they circled, again and again breaking forth into soulless and
dispirited cheers to attract those safe within. Nothing more pathetic
can be imagined than those cheers, which were but as a voice crying in
the wilderness, and flung back to them in echo from the granite walls
towering above them. With the police at their heels, and ruin confronting
them, they despairingly kept on the move for one weary hour or more,
threading the narrow thoroughfares which irregularly surround the General
Post-Office; and the cheers, at first of simulated defiance, now died
away in almost a piteous groan. Then at last the City police, taking
stern action, prevented them from demonstrating any further; and the
wretched heart-broken remnant of the strike army gradually melted away
towards the East, whence, in the sunrise, they had emerged so hopeful and
so triumphant in anticipation.
During the day the number of men who paid the inevitable penalty of their
folly reached nearly three hundred. In the evening there was an attempt
at a muster after the battle, and several hundred men again assembled on
Clerkenwell Green. Mr. Mahon addressed them, and endeavoured to reanimate
them by announcing that the real Waterloo was to be fought on the morrow,
when the whole of the London postmen would be called out on strike. Every
postman within the Metropolitan area was exhorted to obey the summons.
The morrow came, however; and instead of the general rising and the
consequent paralysing of the commerce of the country as was predicted,
the postmen, realising the extremity to which they had been pushed and
the failure of it, unconditionally surrendered, by going about their
duties as usual. The whole movement had collapsed, and the Postmen’s
Union was broken up. During the next two days the authorities were
inundated with applications from the suspended and dismissed men for
reinstatement, and therewith offering abject apology.
In all 435 men were either peremptorily dismissed or suspended with
almost the certainty of dismissal. Of these 263 belonged to the
unestablished, and 172 to the established class. Mr. Raikes triumphed;
but it brought him almost as much worry and bitterness of spirit as a
defeat would have done.
The postmen’s strike had ended in even more ignominious failure than
had the telegraphists’ strike of twenty years previous. Once more the
lesson had been proved that it was suicide for any single section
of State servants to attempt to fight with the weapon of a strike a
Government with inexhaustible resources, and without the assistance of an
enlightened public sympathy on their side.