On April 19 and May 12, 1904, Mr. Nannetti again protested against the promotion of the woman in question to the position of first class assistant supervisor, saying: "This girl was appointed because she had strong friends at Court." ... On the latter date Mr. Nannetti also intervened on behalf of a telegraphist at North Wall, whose salary had been reduced from $6 a week to $5, as well as on behalf of one Wood, who had been retired on a reduced pension, by way of punishment. The case of Wood, Mr. Nannetti had brought up in 1903, when the Post Office Vote was under discussion. For the purpose of bringing these several matters before the House, he now moved the reduction of the salary of the Postmaster General by $500.[313] On March 16, 1903, Mr. Nannetti asked whether the statement of the Controller that there was not a man qualified for promotion in the [Dublin letter sorting] branch had had any influence "with the Department in the filling of a certain vacancy in the Dublin Post Office."[314] That question illustrated a type of intervention that suggests the possibility of Great Britain reaching the stage that has been reached in Australia, where Members of Parliament have been known to move reductions in the salaries of officers who had offended the rank and file by attempting to introduce businesslike methods and practices. If that stage ever is reached, there will be a great multiplication of cases like the following one. Before the Tweedmouth Committee appeared Mr. J. Shephard, Chairman Metropolitan Districts Board of Postal Clerks' Association, to champion the cause of Mr. ----. Said Mr. Shephard: "I have it here on his word that his postmaster has recommended him for a vacant clerkship at the District Office. Mr. ---- has served for many years under the eyes of this postmaster who recommends him for promotion, and I take it that that is full and sufficient evidence of Mr. ----'s fitness to perform the duties of the clerk." Mr. J. C. Badcock, Controller London Postal Service, testified in reply that he had summoned the postmaster in question, who had admitted that Mr. ---- had discharged "minor clerical duties" in a perfectly satisfactory manner, but that his recommendation that Mr. ---- should be promoted to a clerkship, "was made more out of sympathy with the man than with any hope that he would be qualified to undertake the higher duties which he would have to succeed to if appointed to a clerkship."[315] * * * * * [Sidenote: _M. P.'s act in Advance_] In March, 1887, Mr. Bradlaugh, M. P., intervened in the House of Commons on behalf of two telegraph clerks at Liverpool who feared they were about to be passed over in favor "of a young man who entered the Engineering Department nine months ago as a temporary foreman."[316]