this trades unionism which must be made allowance for and taken into account. The postal clerks had so long remained loyally constitutional in their attitude, that the application of the restrictive rule to them they regarded as supererogatory and unnecessary. However, justified or otherwise, they were compelled to accept it in common with the rest of the service. Only a few days after this the postal clerks were given a still more serious cause for complaint by the manner in which some of the officials of their organisation were slighted in the matter of promotion ordinarily due to them. Mr. Henry Labouchere put forward the question in the House of Commons, April 25. The chairman and secretary of the Liverpool branch of the Postal Clerks’ Association, Messrs. Thompson and Lucas, were, it appears, unjustly superseded in promotion by junior men. The fact in itself was not so unheard of in the service as to call for public comment; but the circumstances suggested that these officers had been so treated because of their connection with the association of their class. The Postmaster-General in the previous March had given an undertaking in the House of Commons that connection with an association or union should not detrimentally affect any officer’s official career; yet in face of that assurance this seemed as clear a case of intimidation as that of Cardiff. The Postmaster-General denied that their being officers of that union had anything to do with their treatment, and maintained that their position in this respect was neither known to himself nor taken into account. Possibly it was so, so far as he himself was concerned, for at this period, with the bewildering number of claims and counter-claims put forward from a thousand points at once, the Postmaster-General had necessarily to trust very largely to the permanent advisers for information, and doubtless even for guidance to a ruling in some cases.