§ MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHasked the Lord Advocate, Whether, in filling up the vacant offices of Sheriff and Commissary Clerk of Aberdeenshire and Procurator Fiscal of Berwickshire (the respective salaries, according to the 56 Estimates, being £850 and £590, with allowances, per annum) care will be taken to provide that the future holders shall be prohibited, directly or indirectly, from engaging in other business, and strictly limited to the sole and personal discharge of the duties appertaining to these offices?
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)The Sheriff Clerkship of Aberdeenshire is in the gift of the Home Secretary, and the gentleman to be appointed will be restricted from engaging in other business. This principle has been acted upon in recent appointments where the amount of the salary has made it practicable. The same principle has been applied in the appointments of Procurator Fiscal, where the amount of salary and of business has made its application possible. I am glad to learn from the Sheriff, with whom the appointment rests, subject to the approval of the Home Secretary, that he concurs in the propriety of such a restriction. The last appointment in Berwickshire was made under this condition, and in the present case the same course will be adopted.