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.
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 theletter-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 himand 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 purposeof 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 theSaturday’sStar. 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 obedientlyfollow. 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 theEvening 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 arapprochementbetween the parties, and Mr. MorrisonDavidson, 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 executiveshould 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 tojoin 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, thePost, 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 beatentracks 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 tohave 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 heldin 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 equallylarge 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 sorterswas 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. Arrangementsfor 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 thecoupat 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, reinforcedby 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 theevening 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.