Of what can only be correctly described as the fanatical opposition of the Post Office authorities to the reform, it is easy, and customary, to point the finger of scorn or of derision. This is unjust. Honourable men occupying responsible positions as heads of an important branch of the Civil Service, and bound, therefore, to safeguard what they believe to be its truest interests, have a difficult task to carry out when they are confronted with the forcible acceptance of an untried scheme in whose soundness they have little or no faith. That the policy the postal officials pursued was a mistaken one time has abundantly proved; but if their opposition argued lack of understanding, they merely acted as the generality of men similarly situated would have done. Even Rowland Hill, who, as an outsider, battered so long at the official gates, was wont to confess, when, later, he found shelter within the citadel they defended, that he was not a little apt to feel towards other outsiders a hostility similar to that which his old enemies had felt towards him. The sentiment is not inspired by the oft-alleged tendency to somnolence that comes of the well-upholstered official armchair and assured salary, but from the heart-weariness born of the daily importunity of persons who deluge a long-suffering Department with crude and impracticable suggestions, or with complaints that have little or no foundation.[125] By the time the postal reform had come to be an established institution, not a few former adversaries loyally aided the reformer to carry out its details, by their action tacitly confessing, even when they made no verbal acknowledgment, that their earlier attitude had been a mistake. Now that all are dead their opposition may rightly be regarded with the tenderness that is, or should be, always extended to the partisans of a lost cause. A great deal of the opposition was, however, far from honest, and unfortunately had very mischievous effects. On this subject something will be said in the course of the ensuing chapter. FOOTNOTES: [89] The members in addition to Mr Wallace were Viscount Lowther, Lord Seymour, Sir Thomas Fremantle, and Messrs Warburton, Poulett Thomson, Raikes Currie, Morgan John O'Connell, Thornley, Chalmers, Pease, Mahony, Parker (Sheffield), George William Wood, and Villiers. Three of these—Lord Seymour, Mr Parker, and Mr Thomson (afterwards Lord Sydenham)—were opponents of the plan, but that their opposition was mainly official was evidenced when, the Government having adopted the plan of reform, all three became its advocates.—“Life,” i. 287. [90] “The Jubilee of the Uniform Penny Postage,” p. 18. By Pearson Hill, 1890. Cassell & Co. Ltd. [91] “Hansard,” xxxviii. 1462, 1464.