Badcock, Controller London Postal Service, corroborated this testimony with the words: "The statement is absolutely correct. The reports on which it was based can be produced."[293] In passing it may be added that in February, 1895, Mr. R. J. Price, M. P., for Norfolk, East, sought to intervene from the floor of the House of Commons in this case of promotion. In 1892 and 1895, Mr. Price had been returned to Parliament from Norfolk, East, with majorities of respectively 440 votes and 198 votes. Still, again, at the Barry Dock Post Office, a branch office in Cardiff, one Arnold had been promoted from position number 9, by seniority, among the second class telegraph clerks, to a full clerkship, skipping class 1 of the telegraphists. Of this action, Mr. Joyce said: "It was a matter of great regret to the Postmaster General, as expressed at the time, to pass so many officers, many of them most deserving men, but above Mr. Arnold there was actually no one competent to fill this important post. Some had a knowledge of postal work, and some a knowledge of telegraph work, but none [beside Mr. Arnold] were conversant with work of both kinds, and some were otherwise objectionable. Barry Dock had suddenly shot into existence as a large town, which has now a population of about 13,000, and so painful was it to the Postmaster General to pass over all these deserving officers, that, rather than do so, he seriously contemplated raising Barry Dock to the level of a post town, and giving it a separate establishment of its own."[294] Again, one Robinson was transferred from the Post Office at Pontefract to a clerkship in the office of Blackpool, being made to pass over the heads of two young men at Blackpool, by name of Eaton and Butcher. Mr. Joyce said: "The case was specially put before the Postmaster General, and with all his horror of passing people over, he decided that the two young men Eaton and Butcher were not qualified for promotion."[295] * * * * * [Sidenote: _"A Strong Order"_]