After all, the Ridley Commission came as a blessing in disguise. It had provided an opportunity and an excuse for collecting evidence and preparing the strongest possible indictment against the department. The evidence thus so laboriously gathered and industriously prepared was not to be wasted now. The investigation and the experience had taught them many things; it had familiarised them with bodies and branches which had hitherto been held apart, it brought about an affinitive and friendly cohesion of particles; and small bodies which had revolved in their own distinct circumscribed orbit were now given a place and a relationship in a more or less orderly system. In point of fact it was the means of introducing among them one cardinal principle, a law, that of combination. Previous to the Ridley Commission the postal clerks had been little heard of as a combined body, but now on this occasion, with a unanimity that was as commendable as it was remarkable, they showed the necessity by setting the example of forming an association. It has to be borne in mind that the telegraphists were already combined, but their combination proceeded from a different origin, though the effect of the failure of the Ridley Commission was to strengthen their already existing organisation considerably. It was on the purely postal side of the service, however, that the most marked effect was to be produced. In response to the call for evidence of grievances, men hitherto unheard of leapt into the breach, and took up the duties of representatives and collectors of the required evidence most cheerfully. The disappointment that ensued produced the inevitable result where no combination had previously existed, and the ruins of the Ridley Commission were to become the training-ground for a new army of agitation. The same influence operated everywhere. The same effect exactly was produced among the London sorters and the provincial postal clerks. These two uncombined classes had no intercourse with each other; and though there was a kinship between them it had never been recognised. They were like two tribes of one nation, but divided by seas and continents, and with no telegraphic communication between them. For all practical purposes they were almost ignorant of each other’s existence. Yet the London sorters and the provincial sorting clerks without any preconcerted signal, and unknown to each other, spontaneously gravitated towards combination, where no combination existed before. The provincial postal clerks, however, took the initiative, and it was not till some few months afterwards that the Metropolitan letter-sorters, almost unconsciously following the example of their country cousins, formed the Fawcett Association on similar lines. The formation of the Postal Clerks’ Association was preceded by the familiar secret gatherings and more or less successful attempts at belling the cat at the various offices. To