His mellowing and unbending somewhat towards the growing spirit of trades unionism in the Post-Office may perhaps be ascribed to expediency as much as to conviction of its justifiableness. For about this period of 1890 a tidal wave of discontent, it seemed, affected almost every class of public and Government servants, and threatened to sweep them off their feet. The spirit of restlessness and discontent not only affected the police, the telegraphists, the sorters, and the postmen, but it even made itself felt to some extent in the army. Mr. Raikes had to realise that he was facing a very delicate and difficult problem, and though he did not take kindly to his lesson at first, he squared his shoulders and faced it manfully and tactfully when he saw the cloud about to burst. It was his duty to play his own game from the departmental side of the board, and his move consisted in keeping the discontented bodies apart at any hazards, and this by his tact and good judgment he succeeded in doing. He was sorry that he was compelled to dismiss Dredge, and perhaps foresaw the consequences. There was immediately a strong feeling manifested among the postmen; for Dredge was popular; and though the blow caused them to retire for a moment to get their wind, they came up in stronger fighting trim than ever. It was this dismissal really that led up to the formation of the ill-starred but, for a time, formidable Postmen’s Union. Dredge’s dismissal was interpreted into a direct attack on the postmen’s right of combination, and the Chief Office men, who hitherto had been rather lukewarm towards the agitation led by him, now as a matter of principle formed square with the Districts. It was decided to form a General Postmen’s Union, but it was ill managed on misunderstanding from the start.