§ MR. WHITLEYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is the fact that some branches of the Civil Service, excluded from the higher divisions for want of room, have been allowed, under the Playfair scheme, to proceed to a higher maximum salary than they were entitled to under the old classification; and, if so, why, in the Customs Department, while this principle has been acted upon in London, it has been entirely ignored in the case of Liverpool and other outports; and, whether many of the clerks of the second class of such outports, being of long standing, are not entitled to the same consideration as clerks in the Customs in London, and in other departments of the Public Service?
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHSir, in the scheme submitted by the Board of Customs to the Treasury for the port of Liverpool and the port of London respectively, the Playfair scheme is applied to London, but not to Liverpool. There is at Liverpool no upper and lower division of the clerical establishment; but the Liverpool establishment is organized upon the same system as the other outports, where, having regard to the experience needed for the situation of collector, it has not been judged advisable to introduce the upper and lower divisions of the Playfair scheme. The cases, therefore, of the two ports are not, so far, parallel. A Memorial has been received from the 1055 Liverpool clerks upon the subject, in addition to Memorials of all sorts from other branches of the Customs Establishment. The cost of the Customs Service, both in-door and out-door, has already been most seriously increased by recent changes; and it is impossible—as the present application is alone sufficient to prove—to deal safely with such appeals except together, and after the fullest consideration. The whole of them will be so considered, and the general decision of the Treasury communicated to the Board of Customs. It is impossible, in so vast a Service, to arrive at a settlement which would affect every person and every class in precisely the same way. The unusual pressure which is brought to bear, through Members of Parliament, upon the Executive Government by the Custom Establishment, makes it all the more necessary to be cautious in dealing with applications for increased remuneration.