§ MR. JOHN KELLY (Camberwell, N.)I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with a view to obviating the anomalies likely to be created by the conversion, after the method indicated in the Treasury Minute of February 4th, 1890, of the triennial increments of the clerks of the lower division into annual increments, he would be prepared to adopt one by which such clerk would, on April 1st, 1890, be credited with so much (omitting any fraction of a pound sterling) as might then have accrued due to him, and be allowed on such date to draw his first annual increment of £7 10s., or £10, as the case might be?
§ MR. GOSCHENIt is almost impossible to avoid some anomalies in applying new rules to existing establishments. We have admitted the existing lower division clerks without any conditions to the benefits of the new scale. Under the Minute every lower division clerk in the year ending 31st March next will have had his triennial increment converted into an annual increment, with immediate benefit, and I do not think that any further 1165 change of the announced arrangements is necessary.