§ MR. THORBURN (Peebles and Selkirk)asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether Mr. Frederick Bedwell, formerly one of the first-class clerks in the Affidavit Department of the Chancery Division, and who had served 28 years in the Department and in the Record and Writ Clerks Office, made an arrangement with the Chiefs of the Department, with the express written sanction of the Treasury, to be placed on the list of "redundant clerks" at his then salary of £500 per annum, provided he would give up his right to an annual increase of salary of £25 until it reached £600; whether that arrangement has been carried out since 1880 till the present year; whether, in October of this year, intimation was made to him that, as the duties he had agreed to perform, if required, had been abolished, he must now retire upon such pension as his services entitle him to receive; and, whether it is the practice at the Treasury to reserve the right to alter or vary arrangements entered into with members of the Service on retirement; and, if so, was it intimated to Mr. Badwell, when he concluded his bargain with the Chiefs of his Department, that the arrangement was liable to modification or alteration?
§ THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)The facts are as stated in the Question. In September last the Lord Chancellor intimated to the surviving redundant clerks his opinion that they should now retire on pension. Four of them being so advanced in age as to be incapable of any work have placed themselves in the Lord Chancellor's hands. The fifth, Mr. Bedwell, has made no reply; and I understand that his case is under the Lord Chancellor's consideration.