§ SIR SEYMOUR KINGI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the officers of the Indian Telegraph Department have submitted Memorials to the Government of India and the Secretary of State exhibiting a general discontent with the failure of the Government of India to carry out the recommendation contained in a Despatch of the Secretary of State to the Government of India, No. 13 T of 25th August, 1887, providing for the division of all officers below the rank of Chief Superintendent into six classes, thus abolishing grades, but not reducing the number of officiating steps possible in the event of a senior officer going on leave; whether the object of the Secretary of State's Despatch was to accelerate promotion; whether the Government of India has added to the Secretary of State's Scheme a rule of its own, to the effect that officiating promotion should no longer be granted from grade to grade, whereby an opposite effect has been produced from that intended by the Secretary of State; and whether, in view of the continued discontent caused by this rule, the Secretary of State will direct the Government of India to carry out his own recommendations?
§ SIR E. GREY (answering for Mr. G. RUSSELL)The answers to the first two questions of the hon. Member are in the affirmative; but the proposal to divide the service into six classes originated not with the Secretary of State but with the Government of India. Upon further consideration it was found necessary to make a rule that officiating promotion should not be granted from grade to grade; but it was considered that any loss thus caused was outweighed by the other changes, advantageous to the officers, which were made at the same time. There is no present intention of altering this rule, which has been approved by the Secretary of State in Council.