Shortly after the General Election of January, 1906, the President of the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, a powerful political organization, stated that nearly 450 of the 670 Members of the House of Commons had pledged themselves, in the course of the campaign, to vote for a House of Commons Select Committee. At about the same time, Lord Balcarres, a Conservative whip in the late Balfour ministry, speaking of the 281 members who entered Parliament for the first time in 1906, said "he thought he was fairly accurate when he said that they had given pretty specific pledges upon this matter [of a Select Committee] to those who had sent them to the House." Sir Acland-Hood, chief whip in the late Balfour Ministry, added: "... nearly the whole of the supporters of the then [1905] Government voted against the appointment of the Select Committee [in July, 1905]. No doubt many of them suffered for it at the general election; they either lost their seats or had their majorities reduced in consequence of the vote." And the new Prime Minister, Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, spoke of the "retroactive effect of old promises extracted in moments of agony from candidates at the general election." And finally, at the annual conference of the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, held in March, 1906, Mr. R. S. Davis, the representative of the Metropolitan London Telegraph Clerks, said: "The new Postmaster General had made concessions which had almost taken them [the postal clerks] off their feet by the rapidity with which one had succeeded another and the manner in which they were granted." * * * * *