Mr. Austen Chamberlain, a member of the Select Committee, asked Mr. R. Chalmers,[428] a Principal Clerk at the Treasury: "Is it within your experience as an official of the Treasury that Ministers of other Departments not infrequently represent, as the reason for allowing expenditure, the strong pressure that has been put upon them in the House of Commons?" "Yes; I have seen repeated instances of that." "And their inability to resist that pressure for another year?" "Yes."[429] Sir John Eldon Gorst, M. P., a man of large experience of the Public Service, said he had no doubt that in all offices there were officers who had ceased to have anything to do; and that was particularly true of the Education Department, where there was much reading of newspapers, and much literary composition. He had "even heard of rooms where Ping Pong was played, there being nothing else to do at the moment." Sir John Eldon Gorst continued: "The Treasury has power to make an inquiry into every Office, it could institute an inquiry to see whether the office was or was not economically managed, but so far as I know that power never has been exercised. It would be very difficult indeed for the Parliamentary Head of a Department to call in the Treasury for such an investigation. It would make the Parliamentary head extremely unpopular. The only person who, in my opinion, as things are, can really influence the expenses of an office, is the Civil Service head.... But although the Civil Service head of the office has a very great motive to make his office efficient, because his own credit and his own future depend on the efficiency of his office, he has comparatively little motive for economy. Parliament certainly does not thank him; I do not know whether the Treasury thanks him very much; certainly his colleagues do not thank him; ... and the natural disposition of a man to let well enough alone renders him reluctant to take upon himself the extremely ungrateful task of making his office, not only an efficient one, but also an economical one. I think anybody who has any experience of mercantile offices, such as a great insurance office, or anything of that kind, would be struck directly with the different atmosphere which prevails in a mercantile office and a Government office.... I have no hesitation in saying that any large insurance company, or any large commercial office of any kind, is worked far more efficiently and far more economically than the best of the Departments of His Majesty's Government."[430]