Note 179 — Chapter X · The Tweedmouth Committee Report

Compare also Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, April 9, 1896, p. 597, Mr. R. W. Hanbury: “He had sat for some years as a member of the Royal Commission upon Civil Service Establishments, and the Members of that Commission had been greatly struck by the enormous pressure that civil servants in particular constituencies were able to bring to bear upon candidates, and in his view the House ought not to adopt any line of action that would encourage that pressure being brought into operation. So great, indeed, had been the abuses that it had even been suggested that civil servants ought to be disfranchised altogether…. Another great danger that had to be provided against was that in certain London constituencies, and in some of the large towns, it was quite possible that the civil servants might, by combining together, succeed in turning the balance at an election in the event of one of the candidates refusing to pledge himself with regard to raising the scale of wage, or an increase in the amount of pensions, or similar advantages which the civil servants might desire to obtain.”