Having regard to the circumstances and the times, perhaps they had some cause for congratulation that their offence had been passed over so lightly. Certainly it must be said that the Postmaster-General of 1856 showed an example in lenity which a successor of twenty years after would have done well to copy, and which would have shown him in more consistent accord with the growing and expanding spirit of reform.
Undoubtedly there was ample justification for the discontent which centred in the recent memorial from the letter-carriers. The conditions of the service for them and the lower ranks of postal operatives especially were perhaps not what they should have been, a recent slight improvement notwithstanding. But they were better off than they were to be a year or two later. Things were bad in the Post-Office; but if the plain truth be told, probably the position of the letter-carriers rather favourably compared with the lot of those outside, whose occupation and calling bore the nearest analogy to theirs. For, though the department had committed itself to a policy of rigid economy and profit-making, and had definitely assumed a position of subserviency to the Treasury, it had not yet fully entered on that of cheese-paring parsimony at the expense of its humblest workers which was later on to so characterise it the more as it became wealthier and mightier in its operations and its ambitions. Certainly, it had assumed to think its servants well paid on a starvation pittance, but presumably it still felt some little compunction for their bodily comfort. And this was something in those days when labour had few rights and no privileges. With a curious inconsistency, while it kept the letter-carriers on a wage too low to enable them to live decently, and deprived them of a means to add a shilling or two to their incomes, it actually expressed a philanthropic concern about the manner their poor pay and prospects compelled them to house themselves. The dwellings of the letter-carriers for some time became the object of the authorities’ benevolent attention; apparently on the assumption that a slave-owner may consistently pose as a good, kind master, it at least pretended to take a paternal interest in the domestic welfare of these humble public servants still complaining of too little pay. It was suggested that some sort of postal barracks for letter-carriers and their families should be erected near to the General Post-Office. It was thought that they would enjoy a greater immunity from sickness, but more especially would it be convenient to the department to have them within easy reach, so that they might summon them by bugle-call, and shepherd them in one big drove whenever big mails arrived from abroad. Doubtless, also, it entered into the calculations of the authors of this proposed pretty little postal commonwealth, that they would be better able to keep an eye on the morals of their employés, and preserve their good characters. The authorities, however, shrunk from the responsibility of erecting and maintaining such barracks at the cost of the Government. They did not trust their pet scheme so far as that. The Duke of Argyll, whose original idea it was, thought the prospect one more suitable for a public company, but it was stated in his report that the department might afford aid by “securing to the company its rents, deducting the same from the wages” of the letter-carriers. The Postmaster-General of the period may have been animated by the best of motives; but it is observable that no part of the cost was to be borne by the department, nor were the men, already poorly paid, to be assisted in paying for the extra convenience to the department. The report of the medical officer on the matter discloses the conditions which the low wage of the letter-carriers compelled them to live under. A perusal of this report alone, it seems, provides sufficient excuse for the letter-carriers’ claim to better pay as servants of the State. And the Duke of Argyll, by the publication of the disgraceful facts, provided an unanswerable indictment against his own judgment. It has to be remembered that these were the days before workmen’s trains, when the neighbourhoods around the city were almost as congested as at present, and several times more squalid.