Sir James Fergusson, a former Postmaster General, said Mr. Woods' motion had been brought "by the direction of the central Committee of the Postal Union, or some such party." He continued with the statement that the motion was the outcome of the agitation carried on since he, Sir James Fergusson, had dismissed from the Post Office service Messrs. Clery and Cheeseman, the ringleaders of a political campaign carried on in violation of Sir James Fergusson's order of June 17, 1892. He said the employees in the Revenue Departments had been disfranchised in 1782 by the Marquis of Rockingham, Prime Minister, but that the franchise had been restored to them in 1868. That in that year both Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone had approved the policy of enfranchising the employees of the Revenue Departments, subject to the limitation that the ministerial heads of the Departments were to have the power to determine the limits within which the employees were to take an active part in politics. That an attempt had been made in 1874 to remove that limitation, but that the House had supported the Government of the day in resisting the attempt.[184] [Sidenote: _House of Commons is Civil Servants' Court of Appeal_] Mr. R. W. Hanbury, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and representative in the House of Commons of the Postmaster General, the Duke of Norfolk, said, in the course of his reply to Mr. Woods: "We must recognize the fact that in this House of Commons, public servants have a Court of Appeal such as exists with regard to no private employee whatever. It is a Court of Appeal which not only exists with regard to the grievances of classes, and even of individuals, but it is a Court of Appeal which applies even to the wages and duties of classes and individuals, and its functions in that respect are only limited by the common sense of Members, who should exercise caution in bringing forward cases of individuals, because, if political influence is brought to bear in favor of one individual, the chances are that injury is done to some other individual.... I think it is only reasonable to expect that, as both [political] parties in the State have dropped party politics with regard to their employees, the employees should in turn recognize that fact, and drop party politics with regard to their employers." Mr. Hanbury enforced this point by stating that, upon the request of the Civil Servants themselves, Lord Rockingham, Prime Minister, in 1782 had disfranchised the Civil Servants in the Revenue Departments. At that time the party in power, through the Public Service, controlled 70 seats in Parliament. Lord North, who had been in power twelve years, had sent out notices to certain constituencies where the Civil Servants were able to turn the scale, saying, that unless the Civil Servants supported the Government, it would go hard with them. Thereupon the Opposition had sent out counter notices, and thus had put the Civil Service in an awkward position.