It was, perhaps, unfortunate for Mr. Arnold Morley’s popularity in the Post-Office that two previous Postmasters-General had in a measure dealt with the grievances of the various branches of the service. His economical spirit as an administrator would not admit of the necessity for further revision, and he early came to the conclusion that postal agitation had no longer any justification in fact, and was only being promoted for personal ends by a few individuals. That he honestly induced himself to believe so there can be little doubt, though subsequent events were to prove, possibly to his own surprise, the utter falsity of his view and the precipitateness of his judgment. It is necessary to make the same allowance for Mr. Arnold Morley in this position as for Mr. Raikes or any previous Postmaster-General, but the sympathy and kindliness of nature which in Mr. Raikes went to retrieve most of his earlier mistakes, and the rare quality of tact which went far to rehabilitate his popularity at last, were utterly lacking in Mr. Arnold Morley. His freezing coldness of demeanour towards the staff who sought to approach him with their grievances begot the conviction that if he were not actively hostile to their interests, he had no real desire to understand their difficulties, because he was instinctively prejudiced against their claims. Circumstances, however, were to conspire to bring about that which Mr. Arnold Morley was from the first opposed to. As the result of Clery’s persistent correspondence with Mr. Gladstone, the last shackle was knocked off the right of public meeting among postal servants, August 8, 1893. From a postal point of view it was a great triumph of principle. Much of the agitation of the last few years had centred round this principle, and it was mainly as an academic vindication of it that the unfortunate postmen’s strike was precipitated. It was round the demand for free public meeting and as a protest against the presence of the official reporter that the agitation among the telegraphists took the course it did, and nearly ended in another strike. What was intended as a safeguard by the department proved in reality a further menace to contentment in the service, and a continual source of annoyance. It was well, therefore, when after that careful consideration which he promised in a reply to the letter from W. E. Clery as chairman of the Fawcett Association, Mr. Gladstone at last saw fit to announce the concession of free speech and free meeting. As Mr. Gladstone’s concession constitutes one of the main charters of postal liberty, and will become memorable as such, it may be as well to quote it _in extenso_. The Premier’s decision, delivered on August 8, 1893, was as follows:— “It is desirable that there should be uniformity throughout the Civil Service, and that the servants of the Post-Office should be on the _same footing_ as those in other departments.