I. (6)

The development of crimes and offences committed in connexion with strikes is attributable to the weakness of the public authorities.

At the end of the first strike of post office assistants a number of postmen were cashiered. On June 23rd, 1906, some Deputies took steps before the President of the Cabinet with a view to their being reinstated. The Prime Minister relied upon the necessity of discipline, whereupon M. Maujan displayed a singular conception of government by exclaiming that “the representatives of the nation can grant what the Ministers withhold.” All the postmen, including a number who possessed all the qualities which entitled them to be turned out, were reinstated, so that the post office employees formed the conviction that an undesirable employee, burdened with charges of the gravest kind, has only to place himself at the head of a movement, whereupon he becomes sacrosanct, no one can touch him, and he will give orders instead of receiving them. Employees of this kind take up the position of those Chinese rascals who become converted to Christianity in order to obtain the protection of the missions. They can commit crimes and offences with impunity, and if a Chinese magistrate interferes with them, they cry out that they are being persecuted.