The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-03-07 00:00:00

we weeded acv

hasbeen decr

,geous

these

another the indignation of the country

cently we have

been swept

with indirect taxati

fashion

wily in 01

venue with which v

iter
has been
'ay. Re-

xith our protective duties, and

y, in a most sweeping

to the particular items of taxation

1.1,710 raaan
We have at present It

of some (

the in

be conceived, many of

and are onl

ground of the imp

ime c

Regarding

posts v

'hich (

only

•mg the

presume that the complaint meant only that he was '
,ot permitted to screw down the remuneration of
71.1a1s to a mere pittance. This result, how-
ever, has been pretty well achieved. The hands,
through which the vast correspondence of this
great empire passes, are, for their long hours of la-
bour, remunerated with a pittance less than a com-
mon mechanic can earn. With a responsibility
greater than that of any other officer under the
Crown, the post-office clerk is paid less than a daily
labourer upon any of our railways, or in any of our
workshops, whilst in other government depart-
ments we see men, less deserving as to intellectual

attainments or acquirements, both better paid and
infiniteliy more encouraged with the hope of pro-
spective advancement, as the reward of desert and

Take-, ►►s an example of this inequality of treat-
ment, the case of the clerks employed in the Post-
office ►and in the Custom-house, or, in fact, in any
other branch of the public service, or in ovate
commercial employment. There is no one who can
deny the vast responsibility which is imposed upon
the humblest of the clerks in the Post-office. It is
well known, too, that their hours of labour are not
of the shortest. There is not one of these clerks
upon whose assiduity and attention is not dependent
every-day interests more momentous, and responsi-
bility greater, than the Custom-house clerk has to
deal with in a twelvemonth. The mere detention
of letter, through irregularity or neglect, in times
such as the present. involves the fate of a large com-
mercial firm, and the thousands connected with its
prosperity or adversity. Yet what is the remunera-
tion of these hard worked servants of the public in
our own town ? And it is a fair specimen of their

the Liverpool Post-office, something like forty ordi-
nary clerks, who must be persons of some educa-
tion, and of good-character and conduct. The pay
£7O per annum • and there are
o have been eight to ten years in
ort

lam' of th

pittance

And what is the prospect of advancement? To
what encouraging future have these poor toilers in
the public service to look ? A new man enters the
y, and is remunerated precisely the
s those who have been years in the service.
But, before he can hope for an advance—for even
the paltry rise from £7O to £BO as his year's salary—
he must wait until forty fellow-labourers have
either died in the service, been dismissed, or left it
He has forty steps in the ladder to
vith a grey head and perhaps a
-clad children, he achieves the po-
ition from which a clerk in the Custom-house
which a journeyman tailor of ordinary
I industry can command as soon as he has

service to-

n Ms

cottage full of i

The nut!
no pity for

of the Post-office, if they have
.)eir unfortunate officials, ought really
one consideration for the interests of the
which may suffer, and do suffer, under the

o have

operation of the present system. What right have
we to expect continual watchfulness and bodily
and mental energy from a class of men whose
whole life we make a hopeless struggle with po-
verty We have no right to expect even honesty;
and it is most creditable to the Post-office clerks
that, in proportion to their number and their
temptations, so few are found converting the pro-
perty of others to their own use. We trust that
something will be done for these unfortunate men.
nor the Legislature can regard
imately acquired savings thus clipped from
the wages of a hard-working and respectable class.

Neither

THERE is a vague impression existing in the
minds of Englishmen, probably implanted there by
the lessons of our school days, that in whatever

cart they may find tfieMselv

their per-

sons and their property are protected from aggres-
sion by the respect in which the naval power of our

country is held throughout the world. Yet, it is a
singular ,act, which our merchants and the com-
manders of onr commercial marine are continually