§ MR. L. P. HAYDEN (Roscommon, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether it is proposed to abolish the first class of out-door officers of Customs; and, if so, whether it is intended to grant compensation to those officers who entered the Service in 1891, and who, during the next five years, will lose considerably by their promotion to the new grade of assistants of Customs?
§ MR. HANBURYThe first class of out-door officers will eventually be abolished, when the men who now remain in it (owing to their failure to qualify for the new class of assistants) have retired. An arrangement has been made by which no second class out-door officer of good character, whether appointed in 1891 or later, will receive on entering the assistant class a lower salary than £85 (the minimum of the old first class), provided he has then served not less than eight years, that being the minimum period in which, up to now, any second-class out-door officer has obtained promotion to the first class. It is believed that this will equitably meet the requirements of the case.