HC Deb 19 April 1887 vol 313 cc1289-98
DR. CLARK (Caithness)

, in rising to move— That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that, on and after Sunday the 26th of June next, the Sunday Delivery of Letters, Ac. by letter-carriers and rural messengers should cease throughout the United Kingdom, except in those districts where, after the date named, the receivers of two-thirds of the correspondence of the district petition the Postmaster General for a Sunday Delivery, said, he would formally make the Motion, as he understood that the Postmaster General would offer no opposition to the appointment of a Select Committee to consider the matter. Under the circumstances, he would gladly accept the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for Honiton (Sir John Kenna- way) proposing a Select Committee to inquire into Sunday labour in the Department outside the Metropolis. Under the present circumstances they had three conditions of things. In London there was no Sunday delivery, and there nine-tenths of the officials were free, and had complete rest, from Saturday night until Monday morning. In large towns like Glasgow, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Belfast, letters could be had by calling for them within certain hours in the morning; and in smaller towns they had a delivery of letters to all persons who did not apply to be exempted. the hon. Gentleman quoted figures showing that several thousands of persons in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, and other places availed themselves of this provision, and had applied to be spared the infliction of letters on Sunday. If London, with its 5,000,000 of inhabitants, and the centre of the whole business of the earth, did not suffer by the Sunday rest, he did not think other places could suffer. Moreover, he did not see what inconvenience could arise with their system of cheap telegrams. It would not be found that the wages of those who delivered on Sundays were higher than those who did not, and it would be impossible to reduce wages lower than they were. At present it would be difficult to determine the two-third receivers; and, therefore, one modification of his Resolution was to make the question depend on two-thirds of the rate payers, and another was to carry out the London system compulsorily. But he was afraid that in England public opinion was not sufficiently advanced for that. A Resolution to that effect was once carried in that House, but it was shortly afterwards changed. The State, as a great employer of labour, ought to set a good example, and put an end to Sunday labour as far as possible. He doubted whether throughout the country we should anywhere find two-thirds in favour of Sunday delivery. It was purely on physical grounds that he brought forward the Resolution. As a medical man, he had had experience of the terrible exhaustion caused by Sunday labour. Postmen, who were such a hard-worked class, ought to have the great been of Sabbath rest. There was a great amount of unnecessary labour in the Post Office. A large number of merchants, knowing that there was a Sunday delivery in the country, were in the habit of posting circulars on Saturday with a view of the Sunday delivery. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution which stood in his name.

MR. HANDEL COSSHAM (Bristol, E.)

, in seconding the Resolution, said, he felt bound to urge that, on social as well as physical grounds, every man was the better for having a portion of time to himself, and that a larger amount of labour could be done by those who worked six days than by those who worked seven days a-week.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that, on and after Sunday the 26th of June next, the Sunday Delivery of Letters, &c. by letter-carriers and rural messengers should cease throughout the United Kingdom, except in those districts where, after the date named, the receivers of two-thirds of the correspondence of the district petition the Postmaster General for a Sunday Delivory."—(Dr. Clark.)

SIR JOHN KENNAWAY (Devon, Honiton)

, in rising to move as an Amendment— That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the whole question of Sunday labour in connection with the Post Office, outside the Metropolitan district, said, that the matter was important from two points of view—first, because it was connected with the national recognition of the Day of Best; and, secondly, because it intimately affected the happiness of a great number of public servants. He attached great importance to the first point; because the national recognition of a Day of Best brought a great blessing. London compared favourably with great Continental cities in its criminal statistics; and the working classes were extremely jealous of anything which would undermine that Day of Rest which they so greatly enjoyed. He felt great sympathy with the Motion; and he thought we had to justify to ourselves the fact that, while all the other Government offices were closed on the Sunday, the Post Office should be an exception, more especially when we saw that, in London, the Sunday post could be done without. But we must recognize that the Post Office service was different from all other public services. The Government had a monopoly; and, looking to the fact that many parts of the country were entirely dependent on the Post Office for means of information and communication, it was necessary that we should go cautiously in anything we did. In looking at the matter, we ought to take into consideration how much had been done, especially by Sir Rowland Hill, as the Post Office had taken as the basis of its action a Minute passed in 1849, that to all connected with it, the greatest amount of rest should be afforded consistently with due regard to the convenience of the community. By a Resolution of that House passed in 1871, on the Motion of the late Sir Charles Reed, with the assent of the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, it was agreed that as much relief as possible should be given to letter carriers on Sundays. The proposal of the hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) followed that policy in that it would enable the whole country to have the same freedom from postal delivery which was now tolerated, not to say enjoyed, in London. It was, however, a dangerous thing to ask a great public Department to regulate its business according to lines which might recommend themselves for the moment to the House of Commons; but an inquiry by a Select Committee of that House was a very different thing, and might well be assented to by Her Majesty's Government. It would then be ascertained how far an extension of the system of relief from Sunday delivery might be extended, and how far public opinion would encourage the Department to proceed in that direction. For instance, it had been stated that the system of window delivery in Scotland on Sunday had led to more work and to greater inconvenience than the delivery by carriers. The case of the drivers of mail carts ought also to be taken into consideration. He trusted that the error which was committed in 1850, when a change was made of such an abrupt nature that they had shortly to revert to the old system, would not be repeated. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

MR. GEDGE (Stockport)

, who had an Amendment on the Paper to the effect— That it is desirable that all Post Offices throughout the country be closed on Sunday to the same extent as they are closed on that day in the Metropolis, said, he preferred his own Amendment to the original Motion because it covered the whole ground, but he would second the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for East Devon, as it brought the whole question of Sunday labour in the Post Office before a Select Committee, and he understood that the Government would consent to this. In dealing with this question it must not be forgotten that the labours of Post Office letter carriers had been largely increased during the last few years, and that the present system of cheap telegrams would obviate any inconvenience that might arise from the non-delivery of letters upon Sundays. He hoped that in the end such an arrangement would be come to as would enable people in the country to have the same enjoyment that people in London possessed of being without letters on Sunday.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word '' That'' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a Select Committee be appointed to consider the whole question of Sunday labour, in connection with the Post Office, outside the Metropolitan district."—(Sir John Kennaway.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. WADDY (Lincolnshire, Brigg)

said, he rather regretted that any proposal should be suggested that might appear to diminish the strength of the original Resolution. He represented a large agricultural constituency, consisting almost entirely of small towns and villages, and he had received a practically unanimous request that Sunday deliveries should be discontinued. He believed this would be considered as a perfect and entire blessing. However, while preferring the more definite proposal of the hon. Member for Caithness to that contained in the Amendment, he felt bound to give his assent to the latter if it was agreed to by the Government.

THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES) (Cambridge University)

said, he had listened with great satisfaction to what had been said upon this question, especially as this was a matter as to which opinions had been held rather warmly, and had been expressed rather strongly outside that House. It was, therefore, all the more agreeable to him to find hon. Members expressing their views upon the Question inside that House with so much moderation. The Motion of the hon. Member for Caithness was of a very moderate nature, and his proposal ran in the groove of the principle which had been laid down by the Post Office with the view of reducing as far as possible the Sunday labour of the letter carriers in the country. By the proposal of the hon. Gentleman unless the recipients of two-thirds of Sunday letters in any particular district petitioned for a Sunday delivery that delivery would not take place. He, however, trusted that the hon. Member and the House would proceed carefully and warily in this matter; and, for his own part, he preferred the proposal contained in the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Devon, to refer the whole subject to a Select Committee of that House, to that contained in the original Motion, which, if adopted, would probably have the effect of substituting throughout the length and breadth of the land a window delivery of letters on Sunday instead of delivery by letter carrier, irrespective of the requirements of any particular district. He held in his hands statistics which had been prepared at the instance of the late Mr. Fawcett showing the manner in which people utilized the system of window delivery in the large towns in Scotland, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and in Belfast. In Edinburgh and Glasgow the window post was but little used. In Aberdeen, however, on one Sunday 983 persons called for letters, 364 of whom had their walk for nothing, and the remaining 619 received 2,427 letters; 26 officials wore employed on this task, just the number that it would have taken to make a letter delivery. Upon another Sunday, the statistics for the 10 large towns in Scotland were 3,175 persons who called for letters, 960 went empty away; the number of officials engaged in serving these persons was 283, and it would have taken 530 to perform a regular delivery. So that though the amount of Sunday official work was thus diminished, it was at the expense of considerable Sunday work on the part of the public. It certainly would, in view of these figures, appear to be a doubtful advantage to institute the system of window delivery throughout the whole kingdom, and the choice appeared to be between the present system of Sunday delivery and the suspension of all Sunday delivery. This is a very grave question, and one that could not be settled off-hand in a debate in that House. Therefore, he thought the Amendment of the hon. Member for East Devon was calculated to relieve the House of a great difficulty. On the main point, he completely agreed with the hon. Member's sentiments regarding this question. The desire of the Post Office was to minimize, as far as possible, the labour of its servants provided it could be done without undue inconvenience to the public. When, in 1850, the late Lord Shaftesbury carried his famous Resolution in a small House, the result was that after a few weeks the old system of Sunday delivery had to be revived. For the dignity of this House and the efficiency of the department, and especially out of consideration for the officers of the Post Office, it was highly undesirable that such a thing should occur again. It would be very hard on the officers if in one week Parliament adopted a Resolution leading them to suppose that Sunday work would be discontinued, and a few weeks afterwards reimposed that burden. It was far better to proceed carefully and after due inquiry. A great number of Petitions had been presented to this House in favour of the abolition of Sunday delivery; but one could not gauge the strength of a popular movement by the number of Petitions presented. Some did not exactly know what they were signing, and he had received a Petition from the Town Commissioners of Belturbet against the Motion, in which it was stated that several Commissioners who had signed the Petition in favour of the Motion had done so by mistake. It was 15 years since an inquiry was held into this subject, and the time, he thought, had come when a further inquiry might advantageously be made. He had endeavoured to deal with this subject without touching on the religious and social aspects of the matter, though he could assure hon. Gentlemen that he was not at all indifferent to these points, and he was most anxious that the inquiry should be as careful, thorough, and complete as it was possible to make it, so that the Post Office might be able to base upon it such a satisfactory adjustment as would be both for the public convenience and for the benefit of the officials concerned.

MR. BROADHURST (Nottingham, W.)

said, he would do away with all Sunday labour wherever it was possible, and compel those who imposed Sunday labour upon others to pay heavily for it. That had been found by the trade unions most efficacious in cutting down Sunday labour. He hoped that the Telegraph Department would be included within the scope of the inquiry.

MR. RAIKES

said, he understood the words "Post Office" in the Amendment to include the Telegraph Department.

MR. HENNIKER HEATON (Canterbury)

asked whether there would be any reduction in the wages of the employés if the amount of their work should be reduced.

MR. RAIKES

, in reply, said, that that was a question with reference to which it would be desirable to await the advice of the Committee. But he would point out that if no reduction should be made in the wages of those whose labour was reduced, it would follow as a logical consequence that additional payment must be made to those who should continue to work on Sundays.

MR. JOHNSTON (Belfast, S.)

said, he was in full sympathy with the proposal, and hoped that the Committee would set to work with an earnest desire to arrive at a conclusion that would tend to the advantage of those whose ease they were to consider. A severe strain was put on a body of hard-working men by the present system, therefore he sincerely trusted the Committee would be able to recommend measures of relief.

MR. M'ARTHUR (Leicester)

said, he did not support the Motion at all from a religious or Sabbatarian point of view, but upon the ground that men could not retain either their physical or mental health without a weekly day of rest, which many of the postmen never had. He thought that the Committee ought not to put the religious aspect of the matter altogether out of view. It was a serious thing that some 30,000 men in one of the public Departments of the country should be kept at work Sunday after Sunday, and so prevented from attending a place of worship. The difficulty might be met by such of the public who desired their letters on Sunday being allowed to have them upon sending for them.

MR. J. G. TALBOT (Oxford University)

said, he would suggest that the Committee should be instructed to report how the Sunday labour of the ser- vants of the Post Office might best be reduced. If the Amendment were carried in its present form it might not have an operative result. If it should be resolved to lighten the labours of postmasters and letter carriers on Sunday by relieving them of part of their duties it would be necessary to appoint substitutes and pay for their services. And it was right that the House should bear in mind that it was not merely letter carriers who had a claim to consideration—postmasters were very much tied to their posts, and if they were to be relieved—as they ought to be—on Sundays, some other persons must be employed to take their places. He suggested that the Secretary to the Treasury might well consent to unloose the purse-strings a little. When the Post Office was first established it was not thought that it would ever be a contributor to the public revenue. Contrary to expectation, however, it had become a large contributor; and, consequently, the Treasury need not grudge a small expenditure for the purpose of effecting a beneficent change in the interests of the servants in the Post Office. He hoped that if the House agreed to the Amendment, it would be on the distinct understanding that the Select Committee should be a reporting and not a mere shelving Committee.

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

said, he thought there was a great deal of nonsense talked about Sabbatarianism in this country. At the time that they were making these efforts to reduce the Sunday labour of postmen, efforts were being made to permit boating on the lakes in the parks on Sunday. They should bear in mind that Sunday was the only day when many working men were able to attend to their correspondence, and care must be taken that the Post Office was not entirely closed to them on that day. He could assure the Government that if they seriously intended to interfere with the convenience of the public in Ireland in regard to the postal service on Sundays there would be a bigger fight than had been made to-night on the Motion now under consideration.

Question put, and negatived.

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put. Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the whole question of Sunday labour, in connection with the Post Office, outside the Metropolitan district.