The recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee went into effect on April 1, 1897. On July 16, 1897, while the House of Commons was in Committee of Supply, Sir Albert K. Rollit moved the reduction of the salary of the Postmaster General by $5,000.[178] Sir Albert Rollit said: "The Amendment was intended to reflect upon the report of the Tweedmouth Committee, rather than upon either the Government or the Post Office Department, for he thought more might be done to remedy the abuses which were known [shown?] to exist in the course of the report itself. To speak of the Post Office as a revenue earning machine was, in his opinion, not a full or adequate description. He shared to the full the opinion that its first object was to give facilities to the public rather than merely to earn profits, and also to do justice to its employees.... There were grievances which had not been redressed by the report, and the House had a great deal more to do in that direction. It was no answer to say that the Treasury had appropriated a large sum of $695,000 for that very purpose, for after all, what did the appropriation amount to? It only amounted to a rectification of the inadequacies of the past. It was not in London alone, but throughout the United Kingdom, that something like chronic discontent existed. The complaints were loud and widespread. He did not at all agree as to the propriety of the course intimated [by the telegraphists] by way of notice to the Postmaster General, that if the grievances were not redressed, over-time work at night would be suspended [_i. e._ the telegraphists would refuse to work over-time in order to compel the Government to redress their grievances]. That was an extreme remedy in cases where the public convenience and service were concerned; but, after all, every man's labor was his own right, and if there were no disposition to remedy present grievances, even that extreme way of trying to bring about a remedy might possibly have to be resorted to. The Treasury was, of course, a barrier to a good deal. He did not say the heads of a Department did not value as much as he might do pecuniarily the services of those who contributed to the joint effect which he and they made for the public advantage, and if we had a splendid Civil Service in this country, he thought it had one great defect, and that was too glaring disproportion between the salaries of the highest officials and those of the lower, and this proportion might well be redressed."