Mr. Gladstone said: "The suggestion he would make would be that Parliament should give the vote, and, at the same time, leave it in the discretion of the Government of the day to inhibit any of these officers from taking any part in politics beyond giving their simple vote.... Again, before they proceeded to lay down the principle of general enfranchisement, one thing to be considered was the very peculiar relations between the revenue officers and the Members of that House. There it was necessary to speak plainly. He was not afraid of Government influence in that matter, nor of an influence in favor of one political party or another; but he owned that he had some apprehension of what might be called class influence in that House, which in his opinion was the great reproach of the Reformed Parliament, as he believed history would record. Whether they were going to emerge into a new state of things in which class influence would be weaker he knew not; but that class influence had been in many things evil and a scandal to them, especially for the last fifteen or twenty years; and he was fearful of its increase in consequence of the possession of the franchise, through the power which men who, as members of a regular service, were already organized, might bring to bear on Members of Parliament. What, he asked, was the Civil Service of this country? It was a service in which there was a great deal of complaint of inadequate pay, of slow promotion, and all the rest of it. But, at the same time, it was a service which there was an extraordinary desire to get into. And whose privilege was it to regulate that desire? That of the Members of that House...." FOOTNOTES: [70] _Hansard's Parliamentary Debates_, July 4, 1867, p. 1,032 and following. [71] _Hansard's Parliamentary Debates_, June 10, 1868, p. 1,352 and following; June 12, p. 1,533 and following; and June 30, 1,868, p. 390 and following. Compare also: _Parliamentary Paper_, No. 325, Session 1867-68: _Copy of Report to the Treasury by the Commissioners of Customs and Inland Revenue upon the Revenue Officers' Disabilities Bill_. [72] The measure was carried against the Government by a vote of 79 to 47. CHAPTER VII THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FINANCIAL FAILURE OF THE STATE TELEGRAPHS Sir S. Northcote, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Mr. Disraeli's Ministry of 1874 to 1880, is disillusioned. The State telegraphs become self-supporting in 1879-80. The House of Commons, under the leadership of Dr. Cameron, M. P. for Glasgow, overrides the Ministry and cuts the tariff almost in two. In 1890-91 the State telegraphs would again have become self-supporting, had not the House of Commons, under pressure from the civil service unions, increased wages and salaries. The necessity of making money is the only effective incentive to sound management.