MONEY-ORDER DEPARTMENT OF THE POST-OFFICE— CASE OF MR. MEASOR. (Hansard, 10 February 1851)

§ The EARL of ST. GERMANS

would now present to their Lordships a petition from Charles Pennell Measor, late a clerk in the Money-order department of the General Post-office complaining of the injustice of his removal from that office, and praying for inquiry into the allegations of the petition. He might mention that Mr. Measor, the father of the petitioner, was for many years secretary to the late Earl of Chichester, and had for the last forty years been postmaster of Exeter. There he had obtained the respect and esteem of the inhabitants, and there were few gentlemen connected with the county of Devon to whom Mr. Measor was not favourably known. In consideration of the length of time passed by his father in the public service, he (Earl St. Germans) was induced, some years ago, to recommend Mr. Measor, junior, to his 269 noble Friend Lord Lonsdale, then Postmaster-General, to be appointed to a clerkship in the General Post-Office. Mr. Measor was so appointed, and held the situation for seven years, during which, on no single occasion, had any breach of duty ever been imputed to him. He had last Session detailed to their Lordships the case of the clerks of the Money-order department. He believed there was no public office in which clerks who had such important duties to perform, were so ill paid. There were about 130 clerks in this department, four only of whom received so much as from 180l. to 200l., a certain number receiving 130l., and a very large proportion receiving only 70l. a year. At present, after five years' service, a clerk was entitled to a salary of only 80l. a year. The consequence of this was, that those who were not assisted by their friends got into debt and difficulties, and a very considerable number during the last few years were recorded to have passed through the Insolvent Debtors' Court. He must say that he could not think it consistent with the dignity of a great country like this, or with true economy, to underpay services of this class. It was impossible that the clerks could discharge their duty faithfully and efficiently, unless for adequate remuneration. It had been said that the Money-order Office itself was not remunerative; but if you chose to confer a great pecuniary convenience on the public, surely that was no reason why the persons who discharged the duty, should not be sufficiently paid. The hardship of their case was, in the summer of 1848, aggravated by a new regulation: he believed there was no other public office, nor any other department of the Post Office, by which the clerks, in case of illness, were called upon to provide substitutes at their own expense, although they were utterly unable, not merely to provide the services of a substitute, but even to pay for the food, medical attendance, and service of which they stood in need, and would have no other resource than a public hospital. Consequently the new rule was a great aggravation of the hardship of their case, but nothing was done in the matter until in July, 1849, they presented a memorial to the Postmaster General, in which they stated their case, no doubt strongly, but he could not think either disrespectfully or improperly. A gentleman who now held what he must call an anomalous 270 situation in the Post Office, Mr. Hill, of whose talents he wished to speak with every respect, as the author of a system attended with very great public convenience—the Secretary of the Postmaster-General—though what his precise functions were, or by what line of demarcation they were distinguishable from the duties of the gentleman who had so many years held the office of Secretary to the Post Office, he meant Colonel Maberly—Mr. Hill took a very unfavourable view of the conduct of these gentlemen. The loss occasioned to the public by the new system amounted to a sum little less than 1,800,000l., and therefore he could not express very great surprise that the author of that system—wishing to place it in the most favourable light—should seek to cut down the expenditure; but he did think those gentlemen had been treated with a very undue degree of niggardliness. Mr. Hill addressed a letter to the clerks, animadverting in very harsh language on the terms of their memorial as disrespectful, and altogether controverting its statements. The clerks thereupon addressed a memorial to the Postmaster General, in which they expressed their strong belief that there was nothing disrespectful in their representations, and their regret if anything had been supposed capable of such an interpretation, they being most anxious to show the Postmaster General all due deference and respect. They adhered, however, to the statements they bad originally made. They beard nothing upon the subject, as he was informed, for six months, and they began to hope that the explanation they had given was satisfactory to the noble Marquess and the authorities; but in the month of May the President, as he was called, or Chief of the Money-order department died, and the gentleman next in rotation, the senior clerk, it was expected would have been appointed, as he was considered perfectly qualified to fill the situation. He was informed that this gentleman was sent for by Mr. Hill, and told that, unless he not only withdrew his name from the memorial he had signed, and acknowledged the inaccuracy of its statements, but also promised that he would never again for the future be a party to any such communication, he would not be recommended to the Postmaster General for the appointment. The same offer was, he was informed, also made to the two clerks next in succession; but they all felt that they 271 could not worthily accept it, having already apologised for any inadvertence of expression. They were all more or less directly interested in this matter, and were all anxious that it should be properly investigated and decided. Mr. Measor being known to him (Earl St. Germans), and having obtained his appointment on his recommendation, and being also the person who, with the consent and concurrence of the other clerks, drew up the memorial which was complained of, had come to him and asked him to call their Lordships' attention to the matter. Having filled the office of Postmaster General, and knowing many of those gentlemen, whom he had himself appointed, he thought himself perfectly justified in stating the opinion he had formed, without reserve, to their Lordships, in the hope, he would add, of eliciting a similar opinion from the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Clanricarde). He did not bring the case before their Lordships without satisfying himself of the accuracy of the statements as to the offer made to the clerks, and the appointment of another gentleman to the vacant situation who had been a clerk in the Post Office of Edinburgh, from which he was brought in and placed over the head of all the clerks in the London office, who naturally regarded this as a great hardship. Mr. Measor had written to the noble Marquess, avowing himself the author of the memorial in question; on which the noble Marquess thought proper to intimate to him, through the president of the office, that he had been guilty of misconduct, and had acted improperly in communicating to strangers official documents, though those documents were literally nothing more than extracts from a memorial presented by the clerks to the Postmaster General, stating their case for an increase of salary. He could not think there was any breach of confidence or violation of official duty in this, however necessary subordination was for carrying on the public service. Unlike the army and navy, there was no court of appeal to hold the balance between the head of a department and the subordinate in the civil service; and, therefore, where a real grievance existed, it was the duty of that or the other House of Parliament, to take it into its cognisance. He felt that he had been the involuntary cause of this poor man's ruin, because it was in consequence of his advice to send his statement to the noble Marquess opposite, to give him full notice 272 that he (Earl St. Germans) was about to bring the case forward, that this measure of punishment had been inflicted. He trusted, therefore, that the noble Marquess would take the trouble of reading the petition which he laid on the table, and he was not without hope that he would take a favourable view of the case of the petitioner.

The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE

said, if the noble Earl had made a Motion as wide as the range of his speech, and moved for an inquiry into the whole system of administration in the Money-order office branch of the Post-office, to such a Motion he certainly should not have offered any objection; but if, as he understood the noble Earl, he merely moved that the petition on the table should be referred to a Committee, whose labours should be confined to an examination of the statements of a petitioner relating to the official dismissal of a clerk, to that Motion he certainly must advise their Lordships to refuse their assent. A strong case of injustice or grievance, for which no remedy was provided, it would become them to hear, with the view of obtaining redress for the injured party; but he thought it neither consistent with the functions of that House, nor useful to the public service, to entertain the statements of an individual discharged from his office on a matter of quarrel between him and his superiors. Mr. Measor had appealed, with others, to him (the Marquess of Clanricarde). He had also, through him, appealed to the Treasury. To that course he had offered no objection or impediment. He had no complaint to make on that subject—he did not deny the right of the petitioner to appeal to Parliament, nor did he feel the least annoyed at his having done so. But this gentleman had committed other acts which he did not think could be countenanced consistently with what was due to the discipline, order, and regularity of a great public department, or indeed of any large private establishment. It could not he tolerated that a subordinate in a public or in a private office, having had a dispute with his superiors, should be at liberty to print and distribute circulars for the purpose of exciting public odium, and bringing the pressure of public opinion to bear upon his superiors—men who were acting conscientiously and faithfully in the discharge of the duties imposed upon them. In the printed paper which this gentleman had put 273 forth, were extracts of official documents which could only be obtained through his being officially connected with the department. It could not be endured for one moment, that a clerk should copy and publish the minutes of the proceedings in the establishment which he served, and this too, for the purpose of prejudicing the public mind against his superior officers. But this was not all. The statement circulated abroad contained gross misrepresentations. He did not say any single three lines of it contained a falsehood; but its whole effect was to create an unfair and an erroneous impression to deceive those who read it. The noble Earl said, that he (the Marquess of Clanricarde) had been made aware of these statements before the Motion upon it was made last Session; but he never had any cognisance of the statement until the 6th of August, and the speech of the noble Earl was made on the first of that month. It was alleged that Mr. Hill had laid down as a rule, that no clerk should be absent more than three days at a time. Now, there was no foundation whatever for this allegation; but three days were mentioned in this statement in a way to make any one reading it infer that that was all the leave of absence allowed. Mr. Hill had been led to look into the whole system of leave of absence in the Money-order Office, and, finding it unsatisfactory, had laid down a new regulation. This person, for the six years in which he had been employed in the office, had had leave for-twenty-four working days a year, whilst there were other clerks who had not had a single day in three years. He had had in the preceding year no less than thirty-seven days' leave of absence, whilst, as he had already remarked, other clerks were not absent for one day. Mr. Hill had, under these circumstances, requested him (the Marquess of Clanricarde) to adopt a regular system, and in April a plan was adopted which was now in full effect. The clerks in the Money-order Office were divided into classes, and twelve were counted in a class where it was calculated that eleven could do the work, so that by this means one might be always absent, and thus every clerk enjoy a month's leave of absence in the year. Now that was not an unjust nor a severe arrangement, but much more just and impartial than the old system, by which one clerk might be away for a considerable time, and another could get no leave of absence at all. They were allowed to work for one another, and 274 in case of illness, if the absentee was away more than a month, he might have his work done by paying for it. This had been agreed to by all the classes but two; and there was now in the Money-order department of the Post Office, a case of a gentleman who had been ill for eleven months, during the last two years, and his colleagues worked for him without a penny of remuneration, knowing that he really was ill and unable to attend himself. The noble Marquess alluded to the case of Mr. Measor at some further length, stating, that he having violated official decorum, and acted in a manner which, if sanctioned, would tend to impair the efficiency of an important branch of the public service, there was no course left open but dismissal. There could be no ignorance in this case. He had dismissed a letter-carrier, the year before, for having circulated a printed statement reflecting on the conduct of his superior officers. He must once more observe, that he would have been glad if his noble Friend had proposed an inquiry into the working of the Money-order Office, because it would be seen how much improved that department was from its condition some years ago. It was an office of great importance to all classes, and more especially to the humbler classes of the community, of whose interests that House was ever careful, that there should be strict regularity, and all possible safety and despatch there. In 1847 the state of the Money-order Office was positively such that no man knew what were the liabilities and what the assets of the office—the accounts from the time it was first established had never been balanced, and the office was in the utmost confusion, and very far from being self-supporting. Since 1847, when Mr. Hill took the management, the business had increased 12½ per cent in amount, the accounts had been balanced, and were now kept in a manner to show at once what they owed, and what was owing to them; and whereas in 1847 the number of clerks employed in the entire office was 250, now they were only 174, being a direct diminution of clerks, with an increased business, of 76 in number; but if the old system which Mr. Hill abolished had been continued, there must have been 281 clerks; and therefore there had been a virtual saving to the country of the pay of 172 clerks in that one branch of the Post Office. When he had said, that he need not say any more in justification of Mr. Hill's appointment as secretary to the Postmaster General; but 275 if he had been aware that that appointment would have been attacked, he should have been prepared to show that there had been various savings in other departments—in fact, in almost every branch of the Post Office. Never had there been a more economical measure than Mr. Hill's appointment; and, in addition to all the other amendments effected, the condition of the clerks in the Money-order Office had been very materially improved since that event. He confessed that he wished the clerks in the Post Office could be better paid than they were at present; but the noble Earl was aware that there were those who kept a very stringent hold upon the public purse, and it was impossible in large departments of the public service to obtain larger sums than were already voted. Undoubtedly the salaries of clerks in the public offices were not lucrative, but he did not think these Money-order Office clerks were the worst paid and hardest worked of any in this department. The noble Marquess concluded by repeating, that he would assent to any inquiry into the Money-order Office, but he must oppose any investigation limited to the petition on the table.