QUESTION. (Hansard, 18 March 1859)

§ MR. WISE

said, he rose to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs how the £40,000 voted in the Estimates for the Foreign Office Messengers are disposed of; what is the tenure of the office of 348 Queen's Foreign Service Messenger; and what are the regulations which have been recently made with reference to the remuneration of that corps? The total amount voted for the payment of Foreign Office Messengers was £47,000, and as it was stated that no less than 60,000 despatches or enclosures were sent out every year from the Foreign Office a heavy charge under this head of expenditure was unavoidable. The present mode of paying their messengers was very objectionable. The messengers were gentlemen, many of whom had been in the army, who had abandoned their respective professions to embark in the service of the State, and who were required to discharge duties of the most arduous description. They travelled, on the average, from 30,000 to 40,000 miles a year, by day and by night, in all weathers, and they were liable at any moment to be despatched on service. They were consequently exposed to constant wear and tear of body, if not of mind, and he thought they were entitled to the consideration of the Government and of Parliament. The great object was to obtain efficient servants, and when that object was gained they ought to be fully and amply compensated for their services. He believed it would not be denied that the gentlemen to whom he was referring had discharged their duties most faithfully and zealously, and he put it to the House whether it was just that old and deserving men, some of whom had been thirty-five years in the public service, should have their incomes at once reduced from £500 to £200 or £300 a year. The salaries of our ambassadors, our consuls-general, and our consuls had been increased, and it appeared to him somewhat hard that the incomes of these worthy and intelligent officers should be the only salaries to be reduced. He might be asked upon what tenure these gentlemen held their offices. It appeared to him that their appointments were specifically life appointments. In 1824 they were assured that their clear incomes should never be less than £400 a year, and at the same time certain rights and privileges were conferred upon them. In the Finance Committee of 1848 these gentlemen were spoken of as possessing vested interests, and as forming a sort of corporation; but, on the score of economy, be presumed, an alteration had been made in their incomes, which he believed would be as injurious to the public service as it was unjust to these meritorious servants. The average income 349 of Foreign Office messengers had been £800 a year, and their expenses were £270, leaving a clear income of £530. Under the old system, the more work these officers performed, the more pay they received; but under the now plan that incentive to zeal and exertion had been removed. It must be remembered that these gentlemen were engaged in a service in which there was no promotion, and that they were exposed to numerous casualties of various kinds. As an instance of this, he might mention that last year no less than twelve wrecks occurred among the steamers of the Messageries Impériales, by which these messengers were constantly travelling in the discharge of their duties. It was a mistake to suppose that the cost of living abroad was but trifling. In some countries the cost had recently risen 25 per cent, and in others between 40 and 50 per cent. He assumed that it was not too much to expect that the expenditure of a man in the position of a Queen's messenger would be at least £1 1s. a day; and any hon. Gentleman who had been to St. Peters-burgh or Constantinople would know how expensive those places were. Yet the Foreign Office messengers were expected to spend not more than from 16 francs to 18 francs a day. Very often these messengers were placed in a position where they required to spend a considerable amount of money. They were obliged to go to the; most expensive hotels, and to pay whatever was demanded of them. He himself knew an instance in the East, where it was the practice to charge each traveller so much per bed per diem, which included the cost of his entire maintenance. The effect of; this regulation was, that a Queen's messenger on one occasion finding it impossible to get a single-bedded room, was put into one with two beds, and had to pay 30 francs per day instead of 15. It struck him that the present arrangement for the payment of the messengers was unjust in its operation to individuals, and injurious to the public service. Besides, the Queen's foreign service messengers had other burdens to pay of which the House might not be aware. It was true they were released from the payment of £20 a year to the superannuation fund, and he might remark, parenthetically, that according to the book of Mr. Cavendish, an instance occurred in which a messenger had paid no less a sum than £700 to that fund, for which he derived no advantage whatever beyond that now proposed to be given, But, in addi- 350 tion to this, each foreign messenger had to pay a fee of six guineas per annum to some clerk in the Foreign Office for auditing his accounts. He would ask the House whether this was a desirable system to be continued, or whether it was necessary that a sum of between £3,000 and £5,000 a year should be paid to the clerks in the Foreign Office for "agency," which really meant nothing more than receiving the cheques of persons engaged in the foreign service, forwarding the amount, and taking charge of their letters. This agency charge appeared to be quite unnecessary. But, in addition, each consul, upon his appointment, had to pay to some gentleman a fee of five guineas, and each consul-general a fee of ten guineas per annum. Another circumstance in the case was, he thought, not undeserving of consideration in estimating the remuneration to be paid to Foreign Office messengers, and that was, that they had often to carry packages more adapted for Pickford's vans than anything else. He had heard of one instance in which, when a bulky despatch was opened, it was found to contain a tea-kettle, and another in which three or four pots of caviare having been pushed into the bag, in the course of the journey they burst, and the despatches were rendered illegible in consequence of being smeared all over with the dark condiment. Some had gone so far as to send bottles of wine to their friends in the despatch boxes. The most crying injustice, however, under which they suffered was the small amount of their remuneration. The public did not believe that economy was promoted by injustice; it wished to see efficient men employed, and that they should be well paid. The new arrangement tended to discourage the foreign messengers, as they were required to pay their expenses out of their own pockets; the more frequently a messenger was sent abroad the worse off he would be. They should give a fair compensation to the older messengers, and begin the new system with those who were appointed since 1859; to apply the new system to those who had been many years employed created dissatisfaction, and must be injurious to the public service. It would be better to give a lower salary, and allowances while abroad. What he would suggest was, that there should be a fixed salary of £400 a year; a retiring allowance of £150; and that when the messenger was on a journey he should be allowed his expenses at the rate of £1 1s. per day. 351 If the Foreign Office modified the new arrangement in that way he was sure the House would defray the expense.