§ MR. BRADLAUGH (Northampton)asked the Under Secretary of State for 633 India, Whether the ordinary pay and allowances of postal clerks in Upper Burmah were, until recently, 40 rupees per month, and free rations; whether the free rations of postal clerks have been recently suppressed; whether half of the ordinary salary of a postal clerk is retained by the Government until it amounts to 800 rupees, kept as security against individual dishonesty, so that a postal clerk on a nominal salary of 40 rupees per month for 40 months actually only receives 20 rupees per month; whether other, and what, deductions are also made from the salaries of postal clerks for a guarantee fund against dishonesty, as well of themselves as of other employés; whether he is aware that the suppression of the free rations has reduced some of these postal clerks to a condition of great misery; and, whether he will state the salary of the Deputy Postmaster General, and if it is correct that, in addition to his salary, the Deputy Postmaster General receives an allowance for rations, or on what other account, of 200 rupees per month?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST) (Chatham)The first five Questions relate to details of local administration, respecting which the Secretary of State is not in possession of any official information. The salary appropriated to the office of Deputy Postmaster General in Burmah at the present time is 1,000 rupees, rising to 1,400 rupees per mensem. The question whether a special allowance is to be made to the present holder of the office to raise his salary to an amount approximating to what he was receiving as first Assistant to the Postmaster General of India—namely, 1,280 rupees per mensem—is now under consideration.