execution of the terms agreed to in the preceding part of the letter be suspended in any post office of which the members are henceforth known to be taking part in extra-official agitation. They understand that you are inquiring whether the law, as declared in the existing Post Office Acts, does not afford to the public similar protection in respect of postal communication, including telegraphs, as is afforded by the Act 38 and 39 Victoria, c. 86, s. 4, to municipal authorities and other contractors, against breaches of contracts of service in respect of gas or water, the wilful interruption to the use of which [by means of a strike] is hardly of more serious import to the local community than is that of postal communications to the national community. If the existing Post Office Acts do not meet this case, it will be for my Lords to consider whether the circumstances continue to be such as to make it their duty to propose to Parliament an extension to the Post Office of provisions similar to those cited above from the Act 38 and 39 Victoria, c. 86, s. 4."[132] In June, 1882, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, said in the House of Commons: "The House would remember how, last session, he was pressed by honorable Members on both sides of the House to increase the pay of the telegraph employees ... in spite of all that was done for the telegraph employees, he noticed that they were constantly saying that what they received was worse than nothing. All he could say was that if $400,000[133] a year out of public funds was worse than nothing, he, for one, deeply regretted that that sacrifice of public money was ever made."[134] In March, 1883, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, said: "The salaries of the telegraph employees have--I will not say by the pressure of the House, but certainly with the approval of the House--been increased [in 1881]. I do not regret that increase; I think the extra pay they receive was due to them, and if I had not thought so, no number of memorials would have induced me to recommend the Treasury to make such a large sacrifice of revenue."[135] In April, 1884, Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, said: "$750,000 a year has been spent [of late] in improving the position of the telegraphists and letter sorters, and I say there never was an expenditure of public money which was more justifiable than that. If we had yielded to mere popular demands and thrown away the money we should deserve the severest censure; but I believe that if an increase of wages had not been conceded, it would have been impossible to carry on the administration of the Department; and I think there is no economy so unwise as refusing to increase remuneration when you are convinced that the circumstances of the case demand the increase."[136]