MR. TORRENSsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is the fact that the clerks of the Inspector General of Imports and Exports have applied to the Board of Customs for liberty to forward a Petition to the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, praying for a re-consideration of a Petition presented in May last, with a view to giving them a more substantial benefit than was afforded by the recent Treasury Minute upon Customs Salaries; and whether such permission has been refused?
§ MR. CHILDERSsaid, that in answering the Question of the hon. Member he should make an appeal to him and to the House as to the wisdom of asking questions of this kind. The Treasury was engaged in a very difficult operation. In consequence of petitions from different classes of Customs officers last year, they had inquired very minutely into the whole classification and pay of the service, and they had been 1807 discussing a scheme, part of which they had adopted, which would affect directly, he believed, the salaries of 1,000 officers, and indirectly the salaries of several thousands more. Every change in the salaries of the officers of a Department affected not only themselves, but others whose salaries might not be altered. The letter to which the hon. Gentleman alluded had been only issued at one o'clock on Tuesday last, and that letter was made the subject of a Question put on the Notice Paper at four o'clock the same day by an hon. Member. If the subordinate officers of Customs could feel that they could obtain Parliamentary intervention in a few hours at any stage of these proceedings it would be difficult for the Treasury to give that dispassionate attention to questions of this kind which it was their wish to give. It was true that the clerks in the department of the Inspector General of Imports and Exports asked that the scheme for improving their salaries might be re-considered, because they thought they did not get as much advantage as others. It was true that the Commissioners of Customs replied to them, that considering the improvements recently made they were not disposed to forward their petition; but it was true also that the clerks were aide to forward the petition directly to the Treasury, and he was not aware that they had not done so. The whole question was one of great difficulty, and he could assure the hon. Member that the Treasury had given their best attention to it.
§ MR. CHILDERSI said an hon. Member had done so. That Member saw good reason to withdraw it, and the hon. Member then took it up.