MR. FIELDI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that a Royal Commission, reporting in 1881 upon the Registry of Deeds, Ireland, recommended that the office hours on Saturday should be from 10 till 2 o'clock, and that in order to give effect to such recommendation the Registry of Deeds Holidays Act was passed in 1883; whether he is aware that the officials, having enjoyed the Saturday half-holiday for 10 years, are now compelled to attend from half-past 9 to half-past 4 o'clock on alternate Saturdays, not only in direct violation of the Statute, but also of the Order in Council of August 15th, 1890, which reserved the existing privileges of all Civil servants; and whether he is prepared to restore to those officers the regular half-holiday which they were given by the Statute; and, if not, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Correspondence upon the subject which passed between the Registrar and the Treasury, in order that the matter may be discussed when the Estimate for the Department is taken?
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTThe Act of 1883 requires the Registry of Deeds to be closed at 2 on Saturdays for business. The Treasury are advised that this provision refers to business with the public, and does not exempt the staff from the ordinary rules as to attendance laid down by Order in Council for the Civil Service. The saving provision referred to by the hon. Member applies only to annual holidays. The existing staff of the Registry of Deeds received personal additions to their salaries when the seven hours day was introduced, and the rule of half-holidays on alternate Saturdays is an integral part of that system. There 370 is no correspondence on the subject which could usefully be published.