§ BARON FERDINAND DE ROTHSCHILD (Bucks,) AylesburyI beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, prior to the Raikes' Scheme, telegraph clerks, equally with other Post Office servants, received one calendar month's holiday annually, when on a scale of pay rising to £150 per annum; whether the Raikes' Scheme, when revising the scale of pay given to first class clerks, declared that there would be no alteration in respect of the annual leave hitherto granted; whether, notwithstanding this declaration, telegraph clerks on a scale of pay rising to £150 per annum receive only three weeks' holiday, other Post Office Servants still being granted the calendar month when on this scale of pay; whether complaints have reached him that the result of this departure from the practice of 20 years is that the prospect of a calendar month's holiday is indefinitely postponed for the vast majority of the Central Telegraph Office staff, thus placing them in a worse position in this respect than they were for the 18 years preceding the issue of the Raikes' Scheme; and whether he is now prepared, in view of the above 1062 facts, to restore the former practice, and place these officers on a footing of equality with their Post Office colleagues and of all Civil servants?
§ SIR JAMES FERGUSSONThe senior telegraphists only in the Central Telegraph Office have been entitled to one month's holiday, and they retain this privilege. When my predecessor issued his scheme under which first class telegraphists had the maximum of their salaries raised from £140 to £160, the following proviso was added to the announcement:—
As regards annual holidays the Postmaster General does not feel justified in further extending the privilege now enjoyed, and the augmentation of salary is given subject to this condition.Although I sympathise with the desire for a longer holiday, I cannot re-open a matter so lately settled with considerable improvement in the position of the officers in question.
EARL COMPTON (York, W.R., Barnsley)I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman, in connection with this question, whether it is not a fact that in the provinces, where the salaries are at £150, the provincial telegraph clerks get four weeks annual holidays; and whether it is not possible to re-consider the matter so as to put the Metropolitan clerks on the same footing as the provincial telegraph clerks?
§ SIR JAMES FERGUSSONI should not like to answer that question without enquiry: for there is a good deal of difference in the position of provincial telegraphists.