The Post Office statement has failed to conciliate the officials
of the Postmen's Federation or the Conference of Clerical Workers, who have reiterated their rejection of the recommendations of the Holt Committee and their resolve to press their demands for an all-round increase of wages, based on the increased cost of living. It is understood, however, that the threat of a strike is held in reserve pending the contemplated negotiations between the National Joint Com- mittee—which represents seven sections of Post Office workers with an aggregate membership of eighty thousand—and the Postmaster-General. The menace of a general dislocation of our postal system is thus deferred for at least a fortnight, but a review of the steady development of the demands of Post Office officials in the last eight years is not calculated to win popular support or to further the cause of the nationalization of other services. In 1905, before the Govern- ment consented to the formation of a union, some of the spokesmen of the postal officials seriously demanded that the entire profits of the Post Office—then some four millions— should be divided amongst the -staff. The official demand is now for an extra 210,000,000 a year, or ten times what the Holt Committee recommends. The reply of the Postmaster- General seems to indicate that the Government have reached the limit of their concessions. Before the rise in wages granted in 1908 the Post Office had no difficulty in obtaining all the labour it required, and existing conditions do not point to a failure of the supply.
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