an unintentional tribute to the postal agitator by allowing that Clery was the pivot on which the whole agitation turned, and that but for him there would be no organised discontent, used an argument which was most calculated to strengthen the hands of the agitator whom it was desired to efface. This speech for the defence on the part of Mr. Hanbury on this occasion was also rendered a cause for remembrance to the telegraphists, whose work he contemptuously described as only “superior type-writing.” The insult thus levelled at the telegraphists was pointed with a comparison with the sorters’ duties, which were described as requiring “more skill than telegraphic work.” But neither the attack on Clery in the House of Commons nor the compliment to postal work at the expense of the telegraphists availed beyond the momentary triumph. The interests of postal servants were wedded and welded in a new comradeship, which neither insult nor flattery were likely to dissolve. The best answer to these strictures was the successful institution of postal federation throughout the service. The federation of postal associations was already an accomplished fact, and at last telegraphists, postmen, sorting clerks, sorters, and nearly all classes were united in one homogeneous whole for the furtherance of common interests. There had been several tentative attempts at this in the years gone by, but misunderstandings had forbidden its culmination till now. One result of the universal disappointment following on the Tweedmouth Inquiry and the Norfolk-Hanbury Conference was the burying by mutual consent of all class feeling, and the cementing of classes and sections which till now never fully realised that they had so much in common to strive for. The aim of the federated associations was to be at once simple and comprehensive. Unitedly they were to set about it as their first and primary duty to obtain an unofficial, impartial, and disinterested, yet authoritative, Committee of Inquiry into the remaining grievances of postal servants. This they apprehended would comprehend, if not all things, yet most. The vindication of full rights of combination, which could never bring its logical benefit to the men or to the department until it was coupled with official recognition, was another important matter which was to be accepted as a foremost plank in their platform. Of equal importance to every postal servant, whatever his grade, was the claim to full recognition of the liberty of the individual in his leisure time, and the abolition of paltry and unnecessary restrictions on a postal servant’s freedom to engage in any enterprise or undertaking of an honourable nature, according to his fitness or desire to better his prospects outside the service. Related to and closely following on this was to be the claim for citizen rights and all that it involved, including the reinstatement of the unjustly-dismissed officials of the Fawcett Association.