Little or no satisfaction resulted from these appeals, and on July 16, 1897, the report of the Tweedmouth Committee being brought on for discussion in the House of Commons, the opportunity was taken to raise most of the knotty points afresh. Sir Albert Rollit was again to the fore, and well vindicated the claims of the postmen, the telegraphists, and sorters, and, to promote discussion on the matter, moved the reduction of the Post-Office vote by £1000. He was ably supported by Captain Norton, Mr. Hudson Kearley, Mr. William Allen, Mr. Pickersgill, and a number of other influential members, the whole ground of the established forces and the rural and auxiliary postmen being once more gone into. As the indirect result of this debate, a conference was arranged between members of Parliament and the Postmaster-General and Mr. Hanbury, as Secretary to the Treasury; and to this conference members of the still aggrieved classes in the service were invited to give supplementary evidence. The Norfolk-Hanbury Conference, as it came to be known, occupied several sittings during July, representatives of the numerous classes affected giving further evidence. What was at first hailed as a Committee of Arbitration was, however, found to be presided over and dominated almost entirely by the Postmaster-General, members of Parliament being reduced to the position of witnesses and having no voice in the decisions to be arrived at. Sir Albert Rollit, as the principal advocate of the postal case, strove earnestly and strenuously to convince the Duke of Norfolk and Mr. Hanbury that the Tweedmouth scheme was inadequate; that where it had not actually introduced fresh grievances it had but imperfectly met the just demands of the service; and that the shortcomings of the scheme were aggravated by the niggardly manner in which the few favourable recommendations were being applied. An additional volume of evidence on fresh points was put forward by various witnesses called from among the men; and in many respects it was sought to be shown that the conditions of the service were far from being bettered by the scheme, and that many unfair advantages were being taken by the authorities. At an early stage of the proceedings one more effort was made to discuss the questions of civil rights and the notorious dismissals; but it was as promptly ruled out of order as before. There was a deal of ammunition expended by the various postal bodies on the Norfolk-Hanbury Conference, but from certain indications in the Postmaster-General they were led to believe that he was not wholly unsympathetic. They had, however, to wait for a period of seven months for the second instalment of their great disappointment. During this seven months of waiting for the Postmaster-General’s final decision on the points raised, there were several interesting happenings.