An episode from the reorganization of the Civil Service in 1876, in accordance with the recommendation of the so-called Playfair Commission, affords insight into the British practice of paying the public servants something more than the market rate of wages and salaries. The Playfair Commission had recommended that the pay of the lower division of Government clerks begin with $325, and rise by annual increments to $1,000, for seven hours' work a day. Thereupon the Government had fixed the rate at $400, to rise by annual increments to $1,000. The Playfair Commission had stated that if it had been guided by the "voluminous" evidence which it had taken, it would have fixed at $750, the maximum to which should rise the salaries of the lower division clerks. But it had desired to attract "the elite" of the classes that the Government could draw from, and therefore it had fixed the maximum at $1,000.[124] * * * * * [Sidenote: _Fawcett Revision of Wages, 1881_] In August, 1881, the House of Commons accepted the proposal of Mr. Fawcett, Postmaster General, to increase the pay of the telegraph operators, to count seven hours of night attendance a day's work, and to grant various other minor concessions.[125] Those several changes raised the average sum spent for salaries and wages in the transmission of a telegraphic message, from 11.70 cents in 1880-81, to 13.72 cents in 1884-85.[126] Mr. Fawcett stated in the House of Commons that inquiry of "leading employees of labor, such as bankers, railway companies, manufacturers, and others" had led him to conclude that the telegraph operators were underpaid. He also mentioned the fact that while he was considering the arguments that the telegraphists had made before him in support of the proposition that their pay was inadequate, "outside influence" was brought to bear repeatedly upon the telegraphists, and that the aforesaid outside influence "went so far as to recommend the employees to resort to the last extremity of a strike."[127] Mr. MacIver replied that "he wished to say a word with regard to the imputation contained in the statement of the Right Honorable Gentleman, that he [Mr. MacIver] had exercised outside influence upon the telegraphists. In common with other members of the House, he had heard[128] the complaints of the telegraphists, and had thought it his duty to bring complaints before the House and the Right Honorable Gentleman, the Postmaster General, so that, if he had erred, he had erred in common with many others." [Sidenote: _The Treasury on Civil Service Pressure_]