Of course not all cases of intervention by Members of Parliament are as successful as was the intervention of Mr. Bradlaugh, which resulted in the promotion of eleven men out of fourteen who had been passed over as "not qualified for promotion," or, as was the intervention of the Member of Parliament whose name was not revealed, which brought about the revocation of the promotion of the ablest man in the Post Office at Sheffield. Indeed, the principal effect of these interventions is not to force the Post Office to retrace steps already taken, it is to prevent the Post Office from taking certain steps. These interventions modify the entire administration of the British Post Office. They compel the Postmaster General and his leading officers to consider the political aspect of every proposal coming from the local postmasters, and other intermediate officers, be it a proposal to promote, to pass over, to discipline, or to dismiss. It was this possibility of intervention by Members of Parliament, acting under pressure from civil servants' unions, that gave the late Mr. Fawcett "a perfect horror of passing over," that caused Mr. Arnold Morley "the greatest distress" whenever he had to pass anyone over, and that led Mr. Raikes to state in the House of Commons, that, "in the interests of the Public Service, and especially in the interests of the Post Office itself," he had declined to follow the advice of his officers that he promote a certain clerk in the Secretary's Office; as well as that he made it his practice to try to mitigate the rules of the Department governing punishment and dismissal. It was with the thought of Parliamentary intervention in mind, that Mr. Austen Chamberlain,[330] Postmaster General, said, in February, 1903: "The selection of officers for promotion is always an invidious task." * * * * * [Sidenote: _Typical Grievances_] The testimony given before the Tweedmouth Committee, 1897, contains a number of incidents which show how leniently the Post Office Department is obliged to deal with men who violate the rules. These incidents were brought before the Committee by the representatives of the employees of the Post Office, for the purpose of proving by individual cases, that the Department's rulings were unduly severe, and afforded just cause for grievance.