HIS MAJESTY'S MAILS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—It is disappointing to find that the Spectator has no comment to make on the stoppage of mails by dockers referred to in Sir Godfrey Lagden's letter in your issue of March 1st, in which also appears a leader entitled " Is Labour to have Fair Play ? " This, I suppose, must be taken as a sign of the tunes, but it carries me back to days when in a planting district in Southern India notorious for its criminal record I was often called upon to supply " runners " for a local post-office situated on as estate some sixty miles from railhead.
Doubtless many of your readers know the music of thel runner's bells as he jog-trots steadily on his way. Heard!
at night in the depths of the jungle miles from any habitation., as the sound broke the stillness of the forest, approached,, passed and died away in the distance it always seemed to me to convey a sense of law and order, and a feeling of security that is difficult to describe. Often in cases of emergency I have turned on a hillman quite unused to the job and clad in little more than a loin cloth. He seemed to fear nothing once he got that Government badge on his arm and his short bell-decorated spear in his hand. Was he not the bearer
of His Majesty's Mail Nothing short of a man-eater stopped. him. No, not always that, and he has been known to face, the danger and pay the penalty. He, at least, knew the nature of his charge, and the meaning of " make way for the Royal Mail."
The manner in which the Government has treated this interference with mails and the half-hearted protest from the Press generally indicates an utter loss of will to govern on, the one hand and, on the other, something more than " fair play for Labour."—I am, Sir, &c., [We must forgive our correspondent for having overlooked. the strong protest which we made on March 1st about the weakness of the Government in allowing the mails to be; tampered with for the sake of his charming picture of the , Indian hill-runner.—En. Spectator.]
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