A history of postal agitation from fifty years ago till the present day. H. G. Swift
here it is perhaps allowable to point out as a noteworthy fact that it was the clerks of the Civil Service themselves who originally were responsible for the withholding of the franchise from all Government servants. They it was who relinquished their birthright, and were the indirect means of depriving future generations of it. This happened so far back as 1782, and it was actually done at their own request and petition. Nor was there anything particularly reprehensible or blameworthy in their taking up such a position, as it was done entirely for their own protection. The possession of a vote in those days had proved more of a curse than a blessing; and an election period meant a time of coercion and anxiety about the security of their position under Government. In an election they could not please both parties, and their votes being solicited by rival factions, woe to them if they did not vote on the lucky side. At this time the existing Government, through the votes of public servants, controlled no less than seventy seats in the House of Commons. Just before a General Election, Lord North, who had been in power for twelve years, took a high hand by sending notices to those constituencies where the votes of Government servants were likely to turn the scale, that unless they voted for his party, it would go very hard with them in the event of his being returned to power. This was a threat and a warning serious enough in itself, but it was rendered more so by the opposite party retaliating in a like fashion by also sending out notices to the effect that there was a likelihood of their coming into office, and that if they did not give their vote, such Government servants would find themselves in a very awkward predicament.
A strong petition was sent up pleading for disfranchisement, and a bill was introduced shortly after the formation of Lord Rockingham’s administration, which was to deliver ministers from temptation to tamper with civil servants, and the better to secure the freedom of election. It is a somewhat surprising fact, looked at in these days, that this bill was warmly contested in all its stages through the House of Commons. But it was eventually passed by considerable majorities, though in no division were more than 110 members present. At that time it was regarded as a very necessary precaution to have passed this Act (22 Geo. III. c. 41), as it was computed that the Revenue officers formed nearly twenty per cent. of the whole electorate. While the Government of the day wielded such power over the destinies of civil servants because of the possession of these votes, and that in point of fact they could by this means influence no less than 140 votes in the House of Commons, it was perhaps far better that civil servants should be disfranchised. But the natural consequence was that all Post-Office servants, whatever their rank, high or low, were excluded from the use of their votes; and this in course of time gave rise to a very grave injustice.
While citizen liberty was everywhere expanding, and the greater majority of the artisan and labouring classes were being gathered into the widening folds of the British electorate, those who happened to serve the Crown in any capacity had to pay for the privilege by the sacrifice of their vote. From allowing too much liberty to Revenue officers and those serving under the Crown, the Government rushed to the other extreme, and an Act was passed in the pre-Reform days (7 & 8 Geo. III. c. 53, s. 9) by which the provisions of former Acts were amended and extended still further by increasing the penalty to be inflicted on any Revenue officer (including postal officials) for voting at election times while still in his Majesty’s service, and for two months subsequent to leaving it. The penalty was increased from £100 to £500. An officer in the Post-Office was not merely liable to this heavy penalty for recording his vote, which in the ordinary course was allowed him as a citizen by the law, but on conviction was declared to be for ever disabled and incapable of holding or executing any office of trust under the Crown, if he committed the heinous crime of voting at Parliamentary elections. The great Reform Act of 1831, which came to be hailed with such joyous satisfaction by the whole community, afforded no relief to the Post-Office official, and it was not till a quarter of a century later that they were thought worthy of being entrusted with a vote. However this deprival of the franchise may have been justified in Lord Rockingham’s time in 1782, times and circumstances had materially changed when the middle of the nineteenth century arrived.
Such was the paradoxical position taken up with regard to postal servants and all those who served the Revenue, that while they were invariably men of selected character and selected intelligence and education, generally introduced into the public service through the highest influence to vouch for their integrity, they were not thought trustworthy enough to use a vote with common honesty and discretion. The absurdity and injustice of the position could not fail to arouse in course of time the opposition of those affected. In those days the future brilliant critic and fighting editor of the World, Edmund Yates, and Anthony Trollope, the future novelist, were in the Post-Office; and these, in co-operation with Messrs. Frank Ives Scudamore, Chetwynd, and Ashurst, threw themselves into a movement for the removal of such electoral disabilities. The Inland Revenue was represented by Messrs. Dalbiac, Jacobs, and Alaric A. Watts, and the Customs by Messrs. Dobell and Hamel. These, the representatives of the Post-Office, the Inland Revenue, and the Customs, resolved themselves into a committee. A circular was issued to the members of the service, and the support of members of Parliament was obtained, and among these were included Mr. Charles Buxton, Sir Harry Verney, and Mr. Charles J. Monk. The discontent with the existing political restraint placed upon them in a short time pervaded all ranks and sections of the Civil Service; and, feeling that the retention of the present disabilities was a slur on their intelligence, and a stigma on their character for loyalty, the agitation for their removal was entered into with earnestness. This was the first organised attempt to obtain the removal of the disabilities in respect of voting and taking part in Parliamentary elections, which invidiously differentiated all Revenue officers from all other civil servants of the Crown. But it was to prove nearly a nine years’ hard fight before they were to take back what had been so hastily thrown away by a previous generation of civil servants. Beyond a few private members no minister could be induced to give countenance to what had almost come to be regarded as an impossible demand.
When the Reform Bill of 1867 was passing through the House of Commons, Sir Harry Verney, who had warmly espoused the cause of the disenfranchised civil servants, proposed a clause enabling Revenue officials (who were otherwise qualified) to vote at elections, but, on the recommendations of both Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, this clause was negatived without a division. Yet this part of the proposal, at any rate, vehemently opposed though it was by the Government of the day and the leaders of the Opposition, was to be within two years embodied in a statute of the realm. Each forward step taken by the friends of enfranchisement was contested by the occupants of both sides of the House; and every argument that could be devised for and against was imported into the discussion.
It was due to Mr. Charles J. Monk, the member for Gloucester, that the first breach in the Opposition was made. From the very first he had been struck with the unfairness of excluding educated and selected men in the Post-Office, Customs, and Inland Revenue from the exercise of the franchise, while their brethren in all the other departments of the State could freely vote and take part in elections. The principal high official argument, used in its many variations, was that it would be an unsafe weapon to place in the hands of men who might use it for furthering excessive demands, and for general purposes of agitation. Mr. Monk’s reply was in most cases to the effect that “if these officers have just cause of complaint it is far better that the grievance should be brought before the House by their Parliamentary representatives than that it should be left to seethe below the surface, or be brought to light through irregular channels.” It was early in the session of 1868 that Mr. Monk introduced his Revenue Officers’ Disabilities Removal Bill. Slowly and inch by inch it was carried through all its stages in the House of Commons, defeating the Tory Government of Mr. Disraeli, on the motion for going into committee on the bill, by a majority of thirty-two. This was certainly a triumph for the friends of Reform, considering that the Government had the support of the Leader of the Opposition in opposing the measure. Lord Abinger took charge of the bill in the House of Lords, when the Lord Chancellor, Lord Cairns, much to the astonishment of the peers themselves and many others in the Lower House, supported the measure most strongly. This was sufficient to ensure its success, and it speedily passed into law (31 & 32 Vict. c. 73).
During the subsequent Parliament, 1868–1874, Mr. Monk made several attempts to complete the measure of enfranchisement by enabling officers engaged in the collection and management of her Majesty’s revenues to take