PROGRESS OF THE TELEGRAPH MOVEMENT—CONSTITUTION OF THE
COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY—ITS TERMS OF REFERENCE—FIRST SITTINGS—THE
AWARD OF THE TWEEDMOUTH COMMITTEE—DISAPPOINTMENT AND
CONDEMNATION.
While the history of the letter-sorters’ agitation was progressing
towards the point concluding the last chapter, contemporary movements
in the service were passing through the same vicissitudes, and emerging
from similar difficulties in their process of development. The Postmen’s
Federation, independent and strong, had spread itself over a wide area,
and extended its ramifications throughout all the ranks of postmen,
till it now embraced a vast proportion of the rural letter-carriers,
and numbered a roll-call of 20,000 or more. The postal clerks had
likewise strengthened their movement in spite of the blow sustained by
the deprivation of Lascelles, their founder and secretary; and by the
importation of new men and new leaders in the persons of Paul Casey, Leo
Brodie, and George Landsbery, their organisation continued to flourish
and do able and useful work in the direction of Parliamentary inquiry
for the general good. The telegraphists in the same manner had rendered
a good account of themselves. By assiduous lobbying, circularising, and
by private interviewing they had gained over to their side a numerous
band of supporters in the House. The telegraphists had now quite a
respectable literature of their own, their grievances being set forth
in pamphlets and brochures innumerable; while through their organ the
_Telegraph Journal_, and afterwards the _Telegraph Chronicle_, the merits
of their case were kept well to the forefront by the most brilliant
service-writers among them. The guiding spirits of the telegraph movement
during this time, and for a considerable period before, were Hall of
Liverpool, Scott of Manchester, and Nicholson and Garland of London.
But one of the most remarkable effects of the appointment of the
new Inter-departmental Committee of Inquiry was that new postal
organisations, of which the rest of the service had scarcely ever heard,
suddenly made their presence felt. The Head-Postmasters’ Association and
the Sub-Postmasters’ Association had been in existence some time, but
they had conducted themselves with such a studied decorum, eschewing
anything that hinted at the dreaded appellation “agitation,” that it
was confidently expected by many that they would never consent to lay
evidence before a Committee of Inquiry that was born of sheer agitation
or nothing. But they were to come forward none the less. And beside
them, in a motley crowd, came associations of postal porters, overseers
and supervisors, telegraph linesmen, tracers, writers, and others, a
never-ending line of witnesses, all prepared with voluminous evidence on
the long-accumulated grievances of their respective classes.
The Inter-departmental Committee on Post-Office Establishments consisted
of Sir Francis Mowatt, K.C.B., Secretary to the Treasury; Sir Arthur
Godley, K.C.B., Secretary to the India Office; Mr. Llewellyn Smith,
Secretary to the Board of Trade; and Mr. Spencer Walpole, Secretary to
the Post-Office.
Thus, with the single exception of Lord Tweedmouth, who presided, the
committee was composed of representatives of departmentalism, and who,
being high Government officials, could not in human nature be expected to
have an impartial sympathy with the claims to be laid before them. It was
a committee of permanent secretaries of important Government departments,
with whom the principle of economy was the guiding and paramount one.
It was manifest from the first moment that there was little generous
treatment to be expected from a tribunal so constituted. If anything were
wanting to strengthen this supposition, it was the fact that Mr. Arnold
Morley, as Postmaster-General, in laying down the terms of reference for
the guidance of this committee in its deliberations, expressly made it
a condition that they should be guided by the consideration that the
“Post-Office is a great Revenue Department, and that, in the words of
the Select Committee on Revenue Departments Estimates in 1888, ‘it is
more likely to continue to be conducted satisfactorily, if it should
also continue to be conducted with a view to profit, as one of the
Revenue-yielding departments of the State.’” Thus it was made abundantly
clear from the first that sheer justice was not to stand in the way of
all-sacred economy. Things had come to such a pass in the Post-Office
that the Liberal Postmaster-General was bound to make a show of doing
something, especially as the days of his party were now drawing to a
close. Liberal Ministers had of late made much of the platitudes which
were likely to catch the ephemeral applause of the multitude, and they
had been mainly responsible for the doctrine that the State should be
the “model employer of labour,” and that the Government should be in the
“first flight of employers.” Mr. Arnold Morley had not shirked his share
of the responsibility of giving utterance to these mock heroics. If only
for the sake of an appearance of consistency, therefore, it was well
to have called the Committee of Inquiry into existence. By the time it
either failed or succeeded in its object the General Election would be
over, and the responsibility for the acceptance of its recommendations,
whatever they might be, would come as a legacy to the next Government.
The constitution of the Committee of Inquiry, as soon as it became known,
called forth a deal of comment from the discontented service it was
called on to examine into. The general feeling was one of distrust from
the very beginning. Both the telegraphists and the sorters were some
time considering whether to trust their destinies into the hands of such
a committee, whose only redeeming feature seemed the presence of Lord
Tweedmouth, generally accepted all round as honest and disinterested
in a judicial capacity. The leaders of the various associations were
especially dubious. It was not the independent inquiry they had looked
for; but then gradually the feeling set in among the members that, come
what may, the inquiry could not result in rendering their position worse.
They might get nothing; but there was a chance of getting something.
W. E. Clery of the sorters’ organisation endeavoured from the start
to combat this feeling among his followers, and warned them that the
committee being constituted as it was, it would be only a waste of time
and energy preparing evidence. He urged that only on one condition should
they accept its authority and its recommendations in their case; and
that was, that the question of civil rights and the dismissals of their
chairman and secretary should be considered and adjudicated on.
At an early stage of the proceedings, it was sought to ascertain whether
these two important questions would come within the purview of the
committee, and also to obtain consent for their chairman, W. E. Clery, to
be accepted as a witness in respect to this part of their case.
As the result of a meeting held at the Memorial Hall, May 30, it was
decided to put the matter before the Postmaster-General as the subject
of an inquiry. This was accordingly done, and the reply, through the
Permanent Secretary, one of the newly-constituted committee, was to the
effect that as Mr. Clery “is no longer a servant of the Post-Office, he
will not be at liberty to appear before the committee which it is Mr.
Morley’s intention to appoint.” The one question which, as a matter of
the highest principle, was of the utmost importance to postal servants,
was to be burked from the outset. The treatment of this question went
far to strengthen the prejudice against Lord Tweedmouth’s inquiry. The
sorters had, however, meanwhile consented to accept the inquiry, and
accordingly prepared evidence. The sorters’ case was to be taken first.
The committee held its first meeting, Monday, June 24, 1895, and the
inquiry was conducted in Committee-Room “B,” a small apartment of the
House of Lords overlooking the Thames. The proceedings had all the air
of a police court inquiry, and the court seemed centred in a strong
atmosphere of officialdom imported from St. Martin’s-le-Grand. But
it was scarcely imposing either in its assembly or its surroundings.
There was little to relieve the sombre dulness of it except the red
splashes of colour supplied by the crimson-leather chairs with their
embossed coronets, and the gliding vision of Thames steamers and barge
traffic beyond, seen through the generous expanse of window. The grave
and reverend seigniors who constituted the committee were ranged in
a semicircle at a horseshoe-shaped table, and the enclosed space was
occupied by the witness, an arrangement which hinted at inquisitors and a
prisoner in a trap. Lord Tweedmouth as the presiding judge, and perhaps
the chief inquisitor, was a striking figure. Gaunt and towering even as
he sat, the sunlight strongly reflecting on his curious pyramidal-shaped
cranium, his visage hawk-like, for the most part silent and grim, he
seemed like a great brooding eagle, supported on either side by kindred
birds of lesser personality. Sir Francis Mowatt, with his disposition
towards making ponderous jokes in a dry croaking raven’s voice, pitched
curiously enough, however, in a surprisingly pleasant key, was perhaps,
next to Lord Tweedmouth, the most striking figure among the committee.
The others were ordinary unobtrusive-looking gentlemen; and the most
unassuming-looking of them all was a rather slight elderly man, with grey
hair and beard turning white. That was Mr. Spencer Walpole, late Governor
of the Isle of Man, and now Permanent Secretary to the Post-Office.
Courteous, bland and dignified in demeanour, there was nothing except the
mouth, seeming set in a perpetual sneer, to indicate the man; yet he it
was who was to dominate the proceedings from start to finish.
If postal servants indulged the hope that the vexed question of civil
rights and the cognate one of the unfair dismissal of trades-union
officials would be included for consideration, Lord Tweedmouth in his
opening address made it clear that it was to be tabooed. There was
naturally some disappointment manifested over this, and one of the
witnesses for the Fawcett Association, E. J. Nevill, gallantly tried
by a manœuvre to get it discussed. Lord Tweedmouth sternly negatived
it, and the Controller of the London postal service, as one of the
attorneys for the department, with prompt significance demanded the
name of the man who had dared to ask so impertinent a question. It was
the presence of this official, and the way in which he was allowed to
openly influence the proceedings, which largely served to show the real
character of the inquiry, and to weaken the men’s confidence in its
ultimate impartiality. The little incident of demanding the name of a
lower subordinate witness, and the manner of it, induced the witnesses
present, through one of their number, to get a protective guarantee
from Lord Tweedmouth that none should suffer in their prospects for
speaking openly. That it should have been deemed necessary to seek such a
guarantee was suggestive.
The presence of all the heads of departments arranged in reserve
squadron, and commanded by the Controller of the London postal service
and other officials in turn, deprived the inquiry of its strictly
impartial character. These officials were allowed to sit apart from
ordinary witnesses and immediately behind the Permanent Secretary to the
Post-Office, the departmental representative on the committee, to perform
attorneys’ work, to make suggestions, provide questions to be put, and to
pass written communications innumerable. If Lord Tweedmouth felt ashamed
of the unfair latitude allowed in his court, he scarcely betrayed it.
In the meantime, either by implied understanding or by the weak
acquiescence of the rest of the committee, the Postal Secretary was
quietly but diligently asserting his mastery over it. Mr. Spencer Walpole
had a reputation as a man of brilliant parts, and being a descendant of
that historic Walpole who so cruelly used the poor boy-poet Chatterton,
and who is asserted to have laid it down as a dictum that “every man
has his price,” it had come almost as a natural heritage to him to be
regarded as a born cynic. A little of this inborn cynicism seemed to peep
out when asking a witness who and what were his parents, adding with what
was regarded as unnecessary sarcasm that the witness need not answer
the question if he did not like to. The question was supposedly put for
purposes of comparison, but it produced a rather sore feeling against the
commissioner, and in no way tended to alleviate the growing conviction
as to his unsympathetic attitude. They knew that Mr. Spencer Walpole was
an important factor to be reckoned with, but they did not realise as yet
that he was virtually the committee. It did not become marked for the
first day or two. Each member of the committee was allowed to put a fair
number of questions to witnesses, but gradually Mr. Spencer Walpole’s
personality spread itself over the entire gathering, and it became an
acknowledged fact that it was the Post-Office administration personified
in him that was sitting in judgment on itself and moulding the inevitable
verdict. The Permanent Secretary, backed up by his silent but industrious
force of officials preparing the ammunition that he was to fire off, took
the lead with almost every witness. If it was thought he was partial, it
had to be acknowledged he was clever; if he was merciless, he was also
artistic to an extent, especially when he forgot his cynicism. The manner
of his smartness, his alertness, and directness in choosing the leading
question and putting it at every opportunity would have done credit to
an Old Bailey lawyer. It seemed to gradually dawn on two or three of the
committee that there was little left for them to do, so they accordingly
subsided, only to pop up occasionally as if for the sake of appearance.
Sir A. Godley from an early stage of the proceedings was either so
thoroughly bored with the whole business, or so thoroughly convinced
that the verdict could be come to without his active assistance, that
he unblushingly dropped off to sleep, commonly for half-an-hour at a
stretch. The only commissioner who inspired energy into the proceedings
was the most interested party of all, the Permanent Secretary of the
Post-Office, whose administration it was that had come up for judgment.
Not even the occasional laugh, always in such deliberations eagerly
snatched at as a welcome break in the oppressive decorum, could deprive
the occasion of that air of unreality and insincerity that seemed to
pervade it.
The sorters, introduced and led by Groves, the treasurer of the
association, stated their case already so familiar, and in one or two
instances received the compliments of Lord Tweedmouth for the clear
and able manner in which they had made themselves understood. That, of
course, so far as it went, was gratifying, and as each representative in
turn was questioned as to whether he was not an officer of such-and-such
an association, it was calculated to heighten the conviction that
official recognition of their organisations had come at last. The hope,
however, was only a temporary one, doomed to be obliterated by the
growing realisation that this was only too likely to prove a solemn
farce. The witnesses came and went, sorters, telegraphists, postmen, and
others, and in every case with wearisome monotony came the iteration of
that cold, metallic leading question from the Permanent Secretary—the
spare man with the yellowish-white beard surrounding the cruelly sneering
lips—“But is it not the fact,” &c. The question was always so framed
that the counsel for the Post-Office very often wrung from a witness a
reluctant or unwary admission afterwards turned to good account in the
summing up.
The rebutting evidence of the officials as witnesses for the department
was taken alternately with the completion of statements for each class
or section of the service. The evidence of the Postal Controller was not
altogether unfavourable, containing as it did some valuable admissions;
but strong exception was taken by the sorters to his denials of undue
pressure in the working conditions, while surprise was felt that he
should seek to justify a lately-developed system of petty secret
reporting and espionage, execrated and condemned by the staff generally
as unworthy of an English Government department. The evidence of the
chief medical officer was in most respects distinctly favourable,
corroborating their evidence of unhealthy hours and conditions of
labour and the insanitary surroundings of their workaday lives; and
his evidence, so far, in a large measure helped to remove the bad
impression prevailing in respect to the medical officials’ attitude
towards the staff at St. Martin’s-le-Grand. The telegraphists found in
their Controller a very friendly witness so far as his utterances went,
and they felt they had cause to congratulate themselves; only they had
yet to learn that fine words butter no parsnips. The hostility of the
Assistant-Secretary, Mr. Lewin Hill, nephew of the founder of the penny
post, was blunt and undisguised, and especially displayed itself towards
the postmen, portions of his evidence being received by them with the
strongest signs of dissent.
The evidence of the officials originally intended to minimise the value
of that given by the subordinate and manipulative staffs, could not on
the whole, however, be adjudged altogether unfair. The authorities had
to play the game according to the rules prescribed for them, and mostly
with a view to scoring for the department. If they did not play the game
entirely devoid of prejudice, they played it consistently as witnesses
for their department on its defence. The tribunal itself may have been
unfairly constituted, but there were few outward and visible signs that
it was so during the taking of evidence. The naked truth was as decently
draped as possible. And for the artistic arrangement of the drapery there
was much credit due to the secretary of the committee, Mr. Bruce, to
whose courtesy and considerateness the host of witnesses owed much in
carrying through their tasks. Lord Tweedmouth was, as the president of
the inquiry, always studiously fair and strong in his judicial capacity;
but he struck one at times as being uncomfortable and pained at the
realisation, that had come too late, that he had been betrayed into a
false position.
If ever it was a case of “Save us from our friends” it was so with Lord
Tweedmouth. Mr. Arnold Morley as Postmaster-General had lightly and
airily granted this inquiry, apparently with the full conviction that the
case of the postal malcontents was so weak and flimsy that examination
would only cover them with confusion. That indeed was to be the end
and purpose of the whole inquiry; and Lord Tweedmouth, trusting to the
representations of his friend, agreed to risk his reputation on it.
However open-minded Lord Tweedmouth may have been when he approached the
problem, the constitution of the committee, the terms of its reference,
the restrictions with which it was hedged in various ways, all conspired
against a free and impartial verdict. It is probable that Lord Tweedmouth
was as surprised as anybody to find how complex, how tangled, and how
stupendous was the problem so lightly laid before him by Mr. Arnold
Morley. Whatever may have been his chagrin at being thus betrayed into
the acceptance of so onerous and gigantic a task, Lord Tweedmouth
courageously determined to see it through to the end. And he did; but he
came out of the fearful ordeal scarcely the man he was when he went in,
and his public reputation, if not sullied, was certainly not enhanced.
If the recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee were not the result
of a prearranged and foregone conclusion, the subsequent discontent was
largely based on the suspicion that it was so. The inquiry lasted for
some two or three months; there was an elaborate examination of witnesses
drawn from every branch and every section of the lower ranks of the
service, there was a very industrious show of getting at the facts of
things, there was some amount of patience and tolerance displayed, but
considerations of economy were to warp and stultify the verdict to be
presently given. If the verdict had only been in just accordance with
the promise implied in the simulated earnestness of certain members of
the committee, there would perhaps have been little to object to. But it
was not to be. Certainly, few held optimistic views of the result of the
inquiry, but scarcely any one was prepared for what was coming.
When, after some months of silent and unseen deliberation in preparing
their recommendations, the long-looked-for report of the Tweedmouth
Committee was, on March 10, 1897, issued, it immediately produced a
thunderclap. It was eminently disappointing to the whole Service. The
mountain, after all its long labour, had brought forth a mouse. The many
who had asked for bread were offered a stone, while only to a few were
given some small crumbs of comfort. The new scheme was to appropriately
take effect on the First of April.
An examination of the scheme revealed it to be full of flaws and
omissions; and what it appeared to so generously offer with one hand
it filched with the other. It was regarded by every section of the
service as a clever piece of financial thimble-rigging. The only class
who appeared to derive any material benefit worth speaking of were the
London sorters, their maximum being raised to £160 per annum; but even
this benefit was found to be minimised by restrictions, while certain
emoluments and allowances for extra responsibilities and particular
duties were to be sacrificed.
The telegraphists, so far from benefiting, were the principal sufferers,
their maximum, instead of being raised as they had hoped, now being
reduced from £190 to £160 uniformly with the sorters. The postmen, except
in the matter of one or two additional good-conduct stripes, were no
better off than before; while the vexed question of Christmas-boxes—a
source of humiliation to themselves and an unjust tax on the public
indirectly imposed by the department—was left untouched. Altogether the
Tweedmouth scheme was a source of still further grievance all round. The
provincial sorting clerks were “bitterly disappointed,” the postmen were
“dumfounded,” the sorters “by no means satisfied,” and the telegraphists
were simply “overwhelmed with consternation.” These were the verdicts of
the various bodies who were included in the scheme; but several of the
classes who had tendered evidence, in hopes of getting their grievances
redressed, were herein conspicuous by their absence. If there was a
little given there was much taken away. If there was a slight increase
in the holiday period and other minor advantages, ample compensation
was taken in the serious reduction of the telegraphists’ maximum, and
the abolition of allowances for special and senior duties among other
classes, the sorters and sorting clerks. When, indeed, these reductions
and abolitions were considered, it was difficult to accept as an actual
and literal fact the alleged enormous cost of this scheme, seemingly so
hollow and so empty.
The two concessions to sentiment and humanity principally appreciated
by the sorters and others were the acknowledgment of the insanitary
conditions of the sorting-offices and the proposed reduction of the
rigours of middle-of-the-night attendance and split duties. But
other grievances almost as pressing were either ignored or glossed
over, or wholly rejected as not sufficiently proved. In spite of the
representations that had been made on every ground of proof that postal
servants were overloaded with work and responsibility; that the growing
strain and stress was a common cause of brain malady and nervous
breakdown; that the conditions of postal life generally conduced to
premature decay, and were becoming a prolific cause of consumption,
especially among the indoor staffs, the Tweedmouth scheme was to supply
no remedy. In spite of the evidence that the conditions of work and the
disgraceful overcrowding during the performance of important duties were
so largely responsible, it seemed that men were still to be punished
and humiliated for errors next to unavoidable. The Tweedmouth scheme,
moulded within the narrow groove of a mechanical economy, was to bring no
relief for these things. The charges of favouritism in the service had
been scouted as not proven; but if there were few well-defined cases of
direct nepotism, there still obtained the kindred evil of the neglect,
suppression, and humiliation of deserving merit for no other reason
than that it was not accompanied with the prescribed abjectness and
self-effacement. These evils, and the thousand and one grievances arising
out of them, exhaustively and conclusively pleaded as they were before
the inquiry, were practically left untouched by the scheme intended
to provide a panacea for all postal ills. Hence the disappointment of
all classes, both those who were included in the too meagre benefits
and those who were not. It was regarded all round as a scheme more
for the department than for the force. If the department had made a
few concessions, it had exacted a heavy price for them. It had been
confidently thought that if they would not concede they would not take
away; but the result showed that in return for the little that had been
given old privileges were to be ruthlessly cut away and old landmarks
disturbed. The scheme reckoned so costly was found by this means to
partly pay for itself, and even the hours of duty in some cases were so
manipulated as to more than compensate the department for the three days’
increase in annual leave, the most costly item of the whole.
It is unnecessary here to go into a close analysis of so technical
and complex a scheme as that embodied in the report of the Tweedmouth
Committee; but such was the feeling its introduction produced among every
class to which it applied, that it was regarded as an insult and a fresh
injustice; and serious outbreaks of discontent seemed imminent all over
the country. However, whatever the merits or demerits of the Tweedmouth
scheme, the serious fact had to be faced that it had met with sweeping
and universal condemnation, even those whom it most favoured accepting it
only as a Pyrrhic victory for agitation.