the Departmental Medical Officer found both men in W----'s room, and reported there was no reason why both men should not have been on duty from the 8th to the 10th. Mr. Spencer Walpole, Permanent Secretary of the Post Office and a Member of the Committee, said to the witness: "Have you any doubt that the Department would not have taken the extreme course of dismissing any of its servants on the divided opinion of two medical men, if there had been no previous cases against them?... These men are described as deliberate malingerers?" The Chairman of the Committee added: "Do you not think it would be wise that before bringing forward a particular case of this sort, you should inform yourself thoroughly as to the nature of the case, and as to the character of the men to whom you refer?"[418] * * * * * Avery large portion of the evidence presented before the Tweedmouth Committee, which evidence covered upward of a thousand closely printed folio pages, affords a melancholy comment upon the theory which is rapidly spreading from the German Universities over the English speaking countries, to wit, that the extension of the functions of the State to the inclusion of business enterprises automatically creates a public spirit which strengthens the hands of the political leaders in charge of the State, even to the point of enabling those leaders to reject the improper demands made upon them by organized bodies of voters, and to administer the State's business ventures with an eye single to the welfare of the community as a whole, particularly the long-run interest of the taxpayers. The so-called Norfolk-Hanbury compromise, the appointment and Report of the Bradford Committee, and the appointment, in 1906, of the Select Committee on Post Office Servants--the last act not having the support, by speech or by vote, of a single man of first rate importance in the House of Commons--are melancholy instances of what that most discerning of statesmen, the late Marquis of Salisbury, used to call "the visible helplessness of Governments." FOOTNOTES: [363] _Third Report from the Select Committee on Civil Services Expenditure_, 1873; q. 4,641 and 4,418. [364] That is, the claim to additional pay for seven hours' work. [365] That is, the Civil Service Inquiry Commission, 1875-76, of which Sir T. H. Farrer was a member. [366] _Second Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the Civil Establishments_, 1888; q. 10,545 and following, and 20,043 and following. [367] _Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Post Office Establishments_, 1897; q. 13,279, 13,301 and following. [368] _Hansard's Parliamentary Debates_, November 21, 1902, p. 147.