-those treaties under which foreigners residing in Egypt enjoyed ex-territorial rights and privileges-would be abol ished and England would become sponsor for all foreign interests in Egypt. The scheme provided for a very large reduction of direct British authority in the control of the Department of State, maintaining British advisers only for the Ministries of Finance and Justice.

Some of the delegation returned to Egypt to sound public opinion (what an anomaly for Egypt!), and when they returned to London it was to notify the Milner Commission that no negotiations would be entered into except upon the distinct declaration that the Protectorate was to be withdrawn.

At last, in February, 1921, the report of the Milner Commission to the British

Government was published. It was a moderate, sane, sympathetic, and thoroughgoing statement of the conditions as the Commission had found them; but it did not declare the abolishing of the Protectorate. Almost simultaneously, however, Lord Allenby, British High Commissioner at Cairo, sent a note to the Sultan asking him to appoint an official delegation to proceed to London to negotiate for new relationships of the British and Egyptian Governments and upon the basis of the abolishing of the Protectorate.

The Egyptian people and their delegation at London saw in both the Milner report and in Lord Allenby's note no indications of the complete indepen

dence which they were demanding. They felt it was only a diplomatic scheme to change conditions somewhat, but to leave England in the saddle.

By the end of March the Ministry had fallen; its members had been guarded day and night and escorted through the streets by armed patrols during the year of their office. A new Cabinet was formed with Adly Pasha Yeken as Prime Minister and Rushti Pasha, formerly Prime Minister two or three years ago, as Vice-President of the Cabinet. Adly Pasha had been for the past year in close touch with the delegation in London and Paris and was regarded as the most able one to arrange some effective negotiation. In accepting the appointment to form a new Cabinet he notified

the Sultan that it was with the understanding that the official delegation to be sent to London should be presided over by Saad Pasha.

Great was the rejoicing when Adly Pasha's Ministry took office. Some were surprised, some became suspicious, when within a day or two it was announced that Saad Pasha had cabled from London that no steps should be taken until he arrived in Cairo. He had been gone for two years, and was leaving for Egypt immediately.

And now he is back in Egypt. No one knows what may happen. Some are sure he is a dangerous demagogue, choosing rather to awaken emotion and sway the crowd into dangerous extremes. Some say he, being an Egyptian, will never co-operate with Adly Pasha and his Cabinet of Turkish origin toward dictating the policies of Egypt, but rather will be the dictator himself. Some say he will gain the absolute control of the masses and then lead them to an agreement with England on a basis of less than absolute independence. Some say England is quite ready to withdraw and surrender everything to Egyptian control except the Suez Canal. Some look for an uprising of the masses if they discover that the British are actually contemplating leaving Egypt, claiming that what they have learned of British security and justice shall not be surrendered for what Turks have to offer. Some look for trouble over the

question as to whether Egypt or England shall control the Sudan.

A remarkable feature of the present situation is the co-operation of the Mohammedan and Coptic elements of the population. While it is true that one finds an occasional Copt who deplores the possibility of control passing out of the hands of the British, the great majority claim a complete coalescence of these two elements of the population which have been so mutually antagonistic for a thousand years. One fre quently sees banners in the processions displaying both the Crescent and the Cross, and indeed hears among the shouting "Long live the Cross with the Crescent!" Since the beginning of the Moslem conquest thirteen centuries ago no one ever saw or heard such things in Cairo.

The present demonstrations have given no indication of any tendency to violence such as occurred two years ago; all the shouting has been rather constructive in its suggestions, even going so far as to be cheering both for Saad Pasha and for the Milner Commission and England, although one does not just see how the two positions are to be harmonized.

Meanwhile the foreign population of Egypt is seriously wondering what their Governments in Europe and America are to say concerning the decisions to be made. If Saad Pasha proves to be enough of a statesman to co-operate with the European Powers as well as with England, they feel that security and progress may be attained; if he does not, they anticipate a large withdrawal of European investment along with the removal of British authority. Meanwhile the nation, for the present at least, is taking its stand with Saad Pasha, and clamoring for the removal of every vestige of British authority, and suggesting the undoing of many things done by Great Britain in Egypt since 1914, even to the extent of the restoring of the Khedive Abbas II to his authority. The end is not yet. Cairo, Egypt.

SCRIPTOR.

1 Despatches, howeyer, have reported at least one recent outbreak, occurring since this was written.-The Editors.

S

POSTMASTER-GENERAL HAYS

ERVE. I like the word. It is the warm, heart-throb syllable in service. We want to restore its warmth in the Postal Service. The cold syllable of that word has been too much in evidence in the Post Office Department.

To make the Postal Service a real service to the public the Postal management and the Postal workers must first start to serve each other. That's why I want to know the workers and why I want them to know me. I must know their problems and they must know mine. Then we together will know how to serve the public, and then the public will help.

Industrial managers are far ahead of the Postal management in application of the co-operative principle between employer and employee. They have tested it for many years. They have found its application brings not only great personal satisfaction, but highly profitable gains. There cannot possibly be anything to take the place of con

tentment of the workers. Their spirit must be right. Give me this in the Postal Service and we can work wonders. We all know, if we know human nature at all, that it is a pleasure to work-to do our best-if we are appreciated.

That is why I am going to every Postal worker to tell him that I appreciate his work and want to help him. I know as well as I know anything that that same worker will return to the public twofold what is given him.

We must get away in the Post Office service from any idea that labor is a commodity. I would reiterate the suggestion that that idea was abandoned 1921 years ago.

The success or failure of all great enterprises depends, more than upon anything else, upon the spirit in which those who have it to do enter upon their tasks. There is nothing that wins the victory in any task or in any battle except that which is in the heart of the man who fights it or the man engaged

in the task, whatever it is. If I sought to improve a situation, I would try first to find what is the individual thought of the person who has the task to do.

It does seem strange that we do not appreciate the value of the application of this principle in dealing with our fellow-men. It never has failed to pay. I have seen the return already. I heard many of the leaders in the Postal organizations, who have been fighting the Postal management in the past, say with emotion that they were ready to take off their coats and go out and tell the other boys to take off their coats and all together put the Postal Department right to the front in service. Yes, I have heard them say that, and they will do it, too. I have received thousands of letters, telegrams, and resolutions from employees telling me that they are going to do it. I know they will do it.

I am not afraid of any man or organization who wants to work, and these boys want to work. If you can get a

hold of a man's hand, look him in the eye, sit down and talk things over with him, and then say a few words of encouragement, you need never fear; that man is just going to work his head off with you. I say with you-not only for you. You have to say, "Come, boys;" not, "Go, boys." I know that, and you know that, because we do the very same thing for our friends who appreciate us. It is just plain old common-sense treatment, but we are so obsessed with our own importance we neglect its application.

We have in the Postal Service employees who belong to their unions and some that do not. Some of these unions are affiliated with outside unions and some are not. I have seen and met personally representatives of all of these unions and they have met with my assistants and other supervisory officials. We do not care what the employee belongs to if he only understands what service means, and the employees are understanding it. There is one thing certain, though-the Postal door is going to be so wide open and it is going to be made so attractive inside that there will not be much need for open lobby doors or any open doors elsewhere. We are going to do business among ourselves right down on a partnership basis, each for the other and all for the public.

I have found in the Postal Service, as will be found elsewhere, some officials whose conception of discipline is bordering on abjection. They have so long entertained the notion of their own superiority, or of their own dignity, that they cannot comprehend a partnership relation of official and employee, where kindness, courtesy, and consideration are the very foundation of good discipline.

I think this wrong official attitude may be illustrated by citing the fact that a certain official wrote to a clerk who had appealed his case that he did not feel called upon to submit the case for consideration of the Department. He said it was not deemed a matter of concern of a clerk what the attitude of the Department was relative to his stand in the matter, as supervisory officials were held responsible for the proper administration of the service. Under such an atmosphere prevailing many officials naturally could not exercise humanizing methods even though they heartily approved of them.

I am trying to make it plain to every employee that in the office of the Postmaster-General each has a friend that he or she can tell their troubles to, and also that there is no man or woman, girl or boy, in the Postal Service who cannot discuss with us any phase or any part of the ramifications of the activities we have with relation to our partnership.

I believe that the more we emphasize the fact that employees have the right to appeal their cases, the less they will exercise that privilege. That's the experience of private employers for many years. I am going to sound this far and

wide, and I'll wager almost anything that I'll get very few appeals.

We are getting together in the Postal Service. Every official and every employee is beginning to feel that local difficulties must be smoothed out at home, and if they cannot there is something wrong with either one or the other of them.

Personal contact and getting the others' view-point are the plain work tools one requires in fashioning a working body. I want credit to go to the person who does the work, and I propose to see that this is done.

I want every person in the Postal Service to try to do a little better, each day the thing he has been doing. I would rather a man would try to do a thing and make a mistake than not to try at all. Some of our efficiency rating systems, no matter how well intended, have actually worked to penalize some who tried. A clerk who finished his run with all mail worked received minus points for his mistakes, and he was at a disadvantage over the clerk who was smart enough to protect his record and neglect his work.

I am determined, in all seriousness, to go to great lengths to develop the spirit in the Department that we are 300,000 partners. The working conditions in many places are unsatisfactory and a large amount of work must be done in that direction. There is no doubt about the quality of our employees. They have the brains and they have the hands to do this job well, but some place along the line the heart has been lost out of the works.

We are going to have a welfare department just as definite in its duties and certain in its functioning as the fiscal department or any other depart ment. It will be in charge of an individual competent to look after it, doing nothing else. Every large industry in

(C) Harris & Ewing

the country has adopted welfare measures. This humanizing business is not original. It has been the definite trend of American business for the past generation. Just how far I can go with it in the Post Office Department I don't know, but it is certain that very much can be done, and not in any sense in lieu of wages. All the things that are done successfully for the welfare of the employees in other successful businesses must be done as far as possible in this the greatest of all businesses. Why it has not been seriously gone after before in the Post Office Department I don't know. It is certainly one of the very definite purposes of the days just ahead. If we can improve the spirit and actual conditions of the 300,000 men and women who do this job, that in itself is an accomplishment, and it is just as certain to bring a consequential improvement in the service as to-morrow's

sun.

I have said, and I reiterate, that it is my opinion that the postal establishment is most certainly not an institution for profit nor for politics, but an institution for service, and it is the President's most earnest purpose to improve that service. You can't expect men and women to give service if they are to be the shuttlecocks of politics. It would be my very greatest satisfaction if in this effort I contribute a little to the end that the Postal Service be made more and more a desirable career into which the young enter with a certainty that their service will be performed under reasonable conditions for a reasonable wage and for an appreciative people. The men and women who constitute the great army of employees are doing a distinct Government and public service, and they are entitled to an appreciation commensurate with the efficiency and importance of that service. The first element of a proper apprecia