Immediately after the defeat of Earl Compton’s motion in the House, Mr. Raikes promulgated a new order restricting the right of public meeting outside the Post-Office. The acute stage at which the telegraphists’ agitation had now arrived was contemporaneous with the trouble among the postmen. The growing aggressiveness of the two postal bodies, the telegraphists and the postmen, and the free use they were making of public meeting, induced the Postmaster-General to restrict their freedom in this respect by reviving Lord Stanley’s order of 1866. What, however, was a restriction in the case of the telegraphists was a distinct concession to the postal branches of the service, and the sorters especially, who had hitherto been compelled to meet inside Post-Office buildings, greatly appreciated the wider liberty. What in the circumstances was regarded by the sorters as a boon and a concession was, after the wider liberty enjoyed by the telegraphists, regarded by them as a direct attempt on personal rights, and the introduction of terrorism and espionage. And after the assertion of the right of outside public meeting by the postmen, this view was fully shared by them. Indeed, it was the introduction of this restrictive rule that afforded a further excuse for the Postmen’s Union resorting to extreme methods. In so regarding it, the postmen and the telegraphists were at the time greatly upheld by the press, and the Postmaster-General was subjected to a deal of sharp criticism for his action. The question of free public meeting for all postal employés, and other matters arising out of the new Post-Office order, so strenuously objected to by the telegraphists, were brought under the notice of the House of Commons on April 24, 1890, Mr. Pickersgill, himself an old postal servant, and other members, strongly urging on the Postmaster-General the desirability of modifying the regulation. Mr. Raikes, however, was firm in his attitude, and maintained that the new order was really to relax the stringency of a rule which for nearly a quarter of a century was absolutely prohibitory in its effect. The day following this discussion in the House, April 25, a deputation of telegraphists waited on the Postmaster-General to urge that he would not only modify the rule as to public meeting, but also that he would give immediate attention to the many grievances of which they complained, and on which they were agitating. Mr. Raikes promised he would refer the whole question of their grievances to the Departmental Committee then sitting for the purpose of assisting him to come to a decision. The telegraphists had therefore to accept his word for it that their case should receive attention in good time.