In 1858 an attempt was made by the Post Office employees, led by the letter carriers, to secure higher wages and to obtain a remedy for certain other grievances advanced by them. Sir George Bower asked for a select committee of enquiry in their behalf but this was refused by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He agreed, however, to the appointment of a committee composed of Post Office and Treasury officials, but their personnel was so repugnant to the employees that they refused to give evidence, and as a result of this and other difficulties four of their leaders were suspended. The protest on the part of the men was not entirely unproductive, for in the end the Postmaster-General granted them a slight increase in their wages. At the same time he referred to the following rates of wages in support of his contention that there was no good ground for dissatisfaction among the servants of the Post Office: for carriers, 19_s._ a week advancing to 23_s._; for sorters of the first class, 25_s._ to 30_s._; of the second class, 32_s._ to 38_s._; and of the third class, 40_s._ to 50_s._ "Carriers also obtain Christmas boxes averaging, so it is said, £8 a year. In addition these wages are exclusive of uniform, of pension in old age, and of assistance for assurance."[313] [313] _Rep. P. G._, 1859, pp. 40-43; _Parl. Deb._, 3d ser., clix, coll. 211-214; clxviii, coll. 675-82. The first thorough-going attempts to remedy the grievances of the Post Office employees were made in 1881 and 1882 by Mr. Fawcett in his capacity as Postmaster-General. His scheme for improving the pay and position of the sorters, sorting clerks, telegraphists, postmen, lobby officers, and porters resulted in a mean annual cost to the Post Office of £320,000. In 1888, 1890, and 1891, under the supervision of Mr. Raikes, improvements were made in the condition of the chief clerks and other supervising officers, the sorting clerks and telegraphists in the provinces, the telegraphists, counter-men and sorters in London, and the sorters in Dublin and Edinburgh at an additional yearly expense of £281,000. While the representatives of the London postmen were in process of examination, some of them went out on strike. They were severely punished, some 450 men being dismissed in one morning, and a committee was appointed to enquire into the complaints of the London and provincial postmen.[314] In the same month that the strike took place Mr. Raikes announced increases in the pay of the postmen involving an additional yearly payment of £125,000. The revisions so announced from 1881 to 1894 have been estimated to involve an increased annual expenditure of nearly £748,000.[315] [314] _Rep. P. G._, 1895, pp. 9-11; 1891, p. 3; _Parl. Deb._, 3d ser., cccxviii, coll. 537, 1549; cccxlix, col. 213. [315] _Rep. P. G._, 1895, pp. 9-11.