For several years after the introduction of the Fawcett scheme in 1881, the telegraph service had remained in a state of sullen discontent. The formation of the Postal Telegraph Clerks’ Association in the December of the same year in which Mr. Fawcett introduced his measure, did much to keep alive, for the next ten years, the memory of their wrongs. The grievances of the telegraph clerks, notwithstanding Mr. Fawcett’s intention, were still so numerous and so genuine, that on the face of it it seemed questionable whether it had brought them any benefit worth speaking of at all. The same measure of relief which the sorters were clamouring for and agitating because, as they thought, it was being withheld from them, was, from its very inadequacy to meet the justice of their demands, the main cause of discontent among the telegraphists. What the sorters thought it would be a boon to get in its entirety, the telegraphists were now discontented with; and not only were they discontented with the scheme itself for the reasons already shown, but that discontent was still further promoted by the systematic manner in which its few benefits were minimised in their application. The majority of telegraphists were still compelled to bolster up their meagre incomes by means of extra duty, and they were still, after all their agitation, face to face with the hated system of classification and all its attendant evils, irregularity and stagnation of promotion. Since the introduction of the Fawcett scheme the quality and value of their work had greatly improved, while their duties had become yearly more arduous and responsible. Their hours of duty were longer and far more irregular, the pay was insufficient, and daily growing more so when the cost of living and rent was considered, and their privileges were fewer than ever. The few prizes offered by the Fawcett scheme, the few higher promotions from their ranks to the supervising and superintending staff, brought no comfort or satisfaction to the hungry and underpaid army of the lower ranks. Even the overtime, the one means by which they could set up a barrier between themselves and actual want, which, indeed, they were forced to accept to preserve their respectability, was badly paid for and unjustly distributed. Owing to the constant fluctuation in the amount of work, the telegraphists were frequently required to perform overtime at a minute’s notice at almost all hours of the day and night. Overtime became morally and officially compulsory, and it was only by means of it that they could earn a respectable income. In the same manner that the postmen’s Christmas-boxes were used against them as a means of keeping down their wages, so was compulsory overtime, paid for at slender rates, forced on the telegraphists in extension of their nominal eight hours’ day. The confining of a day’s work to eight hours, even had it been allowable, would for the vast majority have spelt privation and poverty.