Sir Algernon E. West, Chairman of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, said that he promoted by merit within the limits allowed him by the Treasury ruling that no clerk could pass out of the second class into the first class without 10 years' service in the second class. Subsequent testimony established the fact that the Treasury had made that ruling in order to prevent the second class clerks from bringing pressure on Members of Parliament with the view to securing automatic promotion from the second class into the first.[282] Just before making the foregoing statement, Sir Algernon West had said: "If you take the whole Civil Service, I think you will find a general concord of opinion that the man receiving from $2,500 to $3,000 a year is the weakest part of the Civil Service. I am not speaking of a young man who is in process of going higher, but of an elderly man who has risen to that kind of high salary, and has no prospect of getting anything more.... An ordinary middle aged man, who has got to $2,500 or $3,000 or $3,500, generally is far too highly paid." Mr. R. W. Hanbury, a Member of the Royal Commission, queried: "How would he get such a position?" The answer came: "By natural progression," _i. e._ promotion by routine.[283] Sir Lyon Playfair, a man of vast experience in the administration of the British Civil Service, said: "Promotions by merit hardly take place in most offices, I think; at all events, there are very few instances brought before us."[284] [Sidenote: _Promotion by Seniority the Great Evil_] The Royal Commission itself reported: "We think that promotion by seniority is the great evil of the Service, and that it is indispensable to proceed throughout every branch of it strictly on the principle of promotion by merit, that is to say, by selecting always the fittest man, instead of considering claims in order of seniority, and rejecting only the unfit. It is no doubt true that objections on the score of favoritism may arise in the application of such a rule in public departments, and the intervention of Members of Parliament also presents an obvious difficulty, but we think that such constant vigilance, tact, and resolution as may fairly be expected on the part of heads of branches and of offices, will meet these objections, and we believe that the certain advantages of promotion by merit to the most deserving men, and therefore to the public service, are so great as to be sure, in the long run, to command public support." [Sidenote: _Able Men must "wait their Turn"_]