§ MR. ROUNDELLasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether, considering the great importance of providing for the inexpensive working of School Boards in rural districts, he will reconsider the rigid departmental rule which indiscriminately forbids the employment of a relieving officer as clerk to a rural School Board?
§ MR. DODSONSir, the objection to a relieving officer accepting office under another authority who might require his attendance when his services might be urgently needed in his district are so serious that such a proposal has invariably boon refused by the Board; and I am afraid that, in the interest of the Poor Law service generally, I could not undertake to re-consider a rule which, when once relaxed, would form a precedent extremely difficult to resist in other cases, and might often furnish the officer with excuses for the neglect of very important duties.