Commons Sitting of 23 December 1852

APPOINTMENT IN THE DUBLIN POST OFFICE.
MR. J. BALLsaid, he wished to put a question to the hon. Secretary for the Treasury. He had been informed that upon a vacancy arising lately in the office of President of the Money Order Department in Dublin, a gentleman already in the service was highly recommended by the local authorities as a proper person to fill it, and that there were thirty-four other gentlemen who might, in the ordinary I course of promotion, have aspired to fill the office; but that the appointment had nevertheless been given to another gentleman who had not previously been in the public service at all, and who, he believed, was chiefly known to the public in Ireland for the extreme violence of his denunciations of the Poor Law Board. He wished to know, therefore, whether in filling up the vacant office of President of the Money Order Department in the Post Office in Dublin the usual practice of that department had been violated by the appointment to the vacancy of a person not previously engaged in the public service?
MR. G. A. HAMILTONsaid, that by the appointment in question no rule had been infringed, nor had the usual practice been violated. The gentleman whose death occasioned the vacancy was the first President of the Money Order Department in Dublin; obviously, therefore, there was no practice or precedent as regarded that office in the Dublin Post Office. But a similar office existed in the London Post 'Office, and it appeared that in 1841 the! Earl of Lichfield appointed a gentleman! not previously in the Post Office, nor, he believed, in any public service; and on the same office again becoming vacant, in 1851, the Marquess of Clanricarde appointed a gentleman of high respectability and intelligence, not previously connected with the Post Office, or with any other department of the public service. With re-

1719
gard to the gentleman now appointed, Mr. Joseph Long, the position of the hon. Member, when connected with the Poor Law Board, must have made him well acquainted with that gentleman's intelligence and efficiency; in proof of which it was enough to say, that during a period of eleven years he had been unanimously elected by the citizens at large the senior auditor of the corporation, and had frequently received the thanks of the corporation for his honourable and upright conduct.

COMPLAINT AGAINST THE GOVERNOR OF GIBRALTAR.
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he begged to put a question to the right hon. Secretary of State for the Colonies. It would be in his recollection that a deputation waited upon him before the dissolution of Parliament, with regard to a certain occurrence at Gibraltar. In the month of March a meeting of the merchants and traders of that own was called with the view to passing a memorial to the Colonial Secretary with regard to certain grievances which they complained of. The Governor of Gibraltar issued a notice that the meeting should not be held. The meeting, therefore, was not held, and the merchants and traders were shut out from making known their grievances in the ordinary way to the Colonial Office. The right hon. Gentlemen gave the deputation to understand he would apply to the Governor of Gibraltar for his statement, and inform them of the result. He wished now to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he had made the application; if any return had been made by the Governor of Gibraltar; and if any statement or answer had been returned, whether he would be kind enough to lay it oh the table of the House?
SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he remembered the circumstance of the deputation to which the hon. Member had alluded, and in consequence of the information he then received he addressed a letter of inquiry to the Governor of Gibraltar; but he had not yet received any explanation in answer.
The House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock.