permanent officers better paid, and while they had no guarantee that their years of service would not be peremptorily dispensed with by the whim or caprice of an individual supervisor. Those who were established further complained that promotions to postmasterships which more rightly belonged to them as postal servants were unfairly distributed to telegraphists, this practice seriously diminishing their legitimate outlet of promotion. These were the principal and salient features of their indictment against the department at this period. But there were many other points, such as proper remuneration for Christmas duty, Bank holidays, Queen’s Birthday, &c.; the inadequate period of annual leave; “split” duties, or duties being spread over a large proportion of the day and necessitating several attendances; the severity of night duty; and other things quite as familiar to the telegraphists, the postmen, and sorters elsewhere. It was to find a remedy for this state of things as they affected them that the United Kingdom Postal Clerks’ Association was inaugurated. Then like a thunderclap came the announcement that the Ridley Commission, whose approach they had so confidently looked forward to, did not intend to visit the Post-Office at all. It was a staggering blow to the postal clerks, as it was to every other body in the service. But so far from demoralising them, it put them on their mettle the more. Their organisation, which the illusive Ridley Commission had been the means of calling into existence, they still had; and they determined to stand by it, and use it for purposes of defence and the furtherance of their claims. For a few years longer the Postal Clerks’ Association, still growing and consolidating, pushed its claims in the many various ways known to men who want their wrongs redressed. But they never departed from strictly constitutional lines; a few members of Parliament were induced to now and again take up their case as included in the common postal cause; they had their conferences, their meetings, their joint petitions, and their memorials to the Postmaster-General, just as did the telegraphists, the postmen, and others at this period; still, as an association, they remained an exemplar to the rest of the postal service. Their pursuing such strictly constitutional methods, and their attitude as a combination being practically beyond reproach, was in no small measure due to the personality of their secretary, George Lascelles, who was the real leader. There was an enormous amount of work done one way and another; but their efforts towards obtaining any real material benefit were as fruitless as were those of the other organisations.