MR. GORSTasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to make any change in the arrangements as to the chief engineers of the Royal Navy, so that those officers may be no longer required to serve eleven years in that rank, whatever may have been the length of their previous service as engineers and assistant engineers, before attaining the full pay and position of chief engineers?
§ MR. W. H. SMITHSir, there is no intention on the part of the Admiralty to make any change in the arrangements as to counting junior service of chief engineers for increase of pay, &c. The 993 present scale is not of recent adoption; but was recommended to be continued by the Committee which sat in 1876. This principle applies equally to other ranks—paymasters, chaplains, &c.—and the Admiralty are not prepared to apply a different rule in the case of the chief engineers.