By the Fawcett scheme the letter-sorters found their position materially improved. They who had dropped agitation, who had been reduced to a condition of timorous servility almost, who had scarcely dared to ask for what they were invited to take, found themselves nearly as well off as those who had fancied themselves entitled to far greater benefits. Everything that the sorters through years of vain agitation had sought to obtain it seemed was now to be granted. The claim to rise to fifty shillings a week, for the asking of which some time before five of their number had been dismissed, was now given them without demur. And what was more, the scheme was dated back to the preceding April, so that some immediate monetary benefit accrued to the majority. In addition to the increases in wages there was to be payment for sacred holidays; a revised system of payment for overtime; the recommendation being that extra duty be paid for strictly in proportion to the amount of weekly wages received; while there were certain other minor advantages, including one which minimised the severity of night attendance. It is unnecessary here to give the whole measure in detail; but such, broadly, were the advantages apparently vouchsafed to the sorting force, the defeat of whose legitimate aims by a former Postmaster-General, and whose rejection had reduced them to a condition of hopeless apathy. The glad surprise, then, with which they especially received the Fawcett scheme may be still imagined. Yet Mr. Fawcett’s generous attempt to apply a panacea for postal discontent was to some extent doomed to fall short of the effect intended, and this from little fault of his own. The just intention that animated Mr. Fawcett in his recommendations was shown by his actually offering, in one case at least, more than was demanded of him, and more than he was compelled to give in any instance. True, his liberality in this respect extended to only one section of the service—the London sorting force; but the fact remains that he might easily have withheld all that he so freely gave. Had he been less liberal-minded, he might, with as much excuse and with as much success probably, have adopted the uncompromising attitude of every predecessor in office. Whatever compelling influence there might have been which resulted in the Fawcett scheme proceeded from the telegraphists’ agitation of that period, though it is more natural to believe that Mr. Fawcett acted throughout independently, and was moved from purely just and liberal motives.