Generally, however, there have been two opposing principles at work throughout. And with two such positive and negative principles—the desire of the postal workers to assert those rights already accorded to almost every other class of labour, and the determination of the officials that such aspirations must be suppressed as dangerous—it was only to be looked for that open discontent would manifest itself sooner or later, and presently assume a more or less definite shape.
The faults and shortcomings almost necessarily incident to such a system of administration as has been indicated, its failure to move with the requirements of the times, its too conservative hesitation to compromise with the growing spirit of reform, its refusal to make allowance for the universal tendency to combine manifested among all classes of labour outside, its cheese-paring economy carried into the question of pay and prospects, were enough in themselves to beget a feeling of unrest and uncertainty culminating in one of open discontent and agitation. But these were only the first elements contributing to combination and defence of principle. Then it was that stubborn refusal to give way on the part of the authorities developed into scarcely-disguised hostility to the men and their claims. They held the citadel of privilege, and the waves of reform might beat against the granite walls of St. Martin’s-le-Grand but they would make no impression. Certainly they were not to be moved from their position by the mutterings of a few hundred malcontents inside who had become infected with the absurd ambition to better their working conditions, and who actually aspired to the wages of a skilled mechanic. Not while they had the power and the license to construe respectful petitions into impertinent demands and respectful remonstrances into insubordination and constructive treason. It would have been too much to have met such demands in a spirit of conciliation and compromise, and, so early in the day, would have been going against every workable tradition of departmentalism. The fact that a Government situation was a guarantee of permanent employment so long as they did not complain should, it was thought, in itself be sufficient to induce the men to accept every humiliation the department chose to put on them. In its desire to govern according to its conception of a benevolent despotism it too commonly provided its employés with a grievance, or a succession of grievances, arising from its attempt to shape their workaday lives by rules of military discipline and restrictive regulations better fitted for a penal settlement than for free men and citizens of selected character and intelligence.