§ MR. M'CARTANI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that certain clerks of the Central Telegraph Office receive £116 a year in the first class after a service of ten and a half years, and other clerks with services of ten years and five months and ten years and four months only receive £86 a year in the second class; whether the difference of salaries arise solely from the classification system; and whether, considering the grave discontent which this inequality is causing in the Service, he will inquire into the matter in order to have it remedied?
§ SIR JAMES FERGUSSONThe statement made in the first paragraph is literally correct. In 1890, in connection with the general revision of the indoor establishment of sorting clerks and telegraphists, a large addition was made to the first class of telegraphists at the Central Telegraph Office in order to provide for duties proper to that class, and the new appointments thus created were filled by promotion from the class below. The promoted officers were fortunate in obtaining such a material increase of pay, but of course this good fortune involved no hardship upon their colleagues who are left on the second class, and who, when their turn comes for promotion, will enjoy a similar advantage. Those in receipt of salaries of £86 a year are by no means at a standstill, as they rise by increments of £6 a year to the maximum of the class, £110 a year. Seeming inequalities such as Mr. M'Cartan indicates must generally follow the re-organisation of an establishment, and there is nothing exceptional in the case of the Central Telegraph Office which calls for a resettlement of the costly revision granted after full and careful consideration little more than a year ago.