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