The position of the postmen had for some months after the strike been engaging the attention of Mr. Raikes, and on July 17 he announced in the House of Commons that he had at last found a means of doing something for them. The cost of his new proposal would be over £100,000 a year, but it was to cover a vast area, so that the benefits accruing would not amount to much in each case: but it was better than nothing, and more than many expected after recent happenings. The two classes of London postmen were to be amalgamated in order to enable the men to progress without interruption from the lower to the higher scale. The maximum was raised by two shillings a week for the suburban divisions of postmen. The auxiliary postmen obtained a slight increase in pay per hour and a little more extra leave. In the country as in London the two classes were done away with, and the maximum raised by two shillings. Extra pay was allowed for Sunday work, and each hour was reckoned as one and a quarter. Perhaps the most appreciated concession of all was an allowance for boots, which till then had not been included in the uniform. Some organs of the press regarded these concessions as all the more magnanimous in a Postmaster-General whose official path had been so strewn with thorns. It was the last thing he was to do for the service. His career as Postmaster-General, so brief, yet so full of vicissitude and labour, was approaching its close. The enormous amount of work which the generally discontented state of the service entailed daily upon him was more than could be sustained by any one man for long. Even after the repeated warnings of impending breakdown, he had stuck to his work. He was now to pay the penalty, and the country was to lose a capable and a dutiful servant. Henry Cecil Raikes, Postmaster-General, passed peacefully away on August 24, 1891.