MR. PATRICK A. M'HUGH (Leitrim, N.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he could state what was the cost to the State of the inquiry by the Tweedmouth Committee into the administration of postal establishments?
* MR. HANBURYThe Postmaster General is not aware of the exact cost of the inquiry because the Office of Works, the Post Office, and the Stationery Office are all concerned, the Post Office bearing the cost of the Secretary, travelling expenses, and allowances to witnesses. But little expense was incurred by the Committee except the ordinary charges for reporting and printing the evidence, and paying the travelling expenses and subsistence allowances of the witnesses, as well as the wages of substitutes who did their duty while they were in London.
MR. PATRICK A. M'HUGHI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, what proportion of the estimated cost of the carrying out of the recommendations of the Tweedmouth Committee will go to the postmen, and what classes of postmen will principally benefit there from?
* MR. HANBURYThe postmen will receive about £150,000 a year out of a total expenditure of £275,000 a year. The benefit will practically extend to all classes of postmen, but those postmen who have not reached the maximum of their scale will derive the greater advantage, as they will henceforth receive a larger annual increment to their wages.
MR. PATRICK A. M'HUGHI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, how, in view of his statement that Post Office employés cannot submit to him their objections to the Tweedmouth Committee's Report by way of resolution, they are to be allowed to present their grievances on this subject to the head of the Post Office Department?
MR. McCARTANI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, considering that no consideration is given to the complaints made by postmen and other postal officials in Ireland, when embodied in resolutions passed by those officials, he will state by what means the complaints of bodies of such officials can be conveyed so as to receive due consideration, and without exposing the officials to loss or censure?
* MR. HANBURYIt has for a long time been laid down by successive Postmasters General—and the rule is believed to be well understood throughout the Service—that representations from the staff on any subject must be in the form of a memorial, and must be transmitted through their immediate superior officers. Such representations properly made receive full consideration from the Postmaster General, and expose the officials who make them neither to loss nor censure.