§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, whether the Treasury Minute, dated 1st May 1890, by which the salaries of clerks promoted to classes the commencing salaries of which were smaller than those received by them at the dates of their promotion, were in future to be determined, and providing that in such cases the promoted clerks are to commence in the higher classes with the salaries they are in receipt of at the dates of their promotion, plus the proportion of increment earned at that date, was in force at the date of the recommendation for promotion to the higher division of the two staff clerks recently promoted in the Accountant General's Department of the Admiralty; whether, under the terms of this Minute, the salaries of these two gentlemen would be £371 each, instead of £231 and £208 respectively as now allotted to them; whether these two gentlemen are entitled, by the terms of the Minute, to retain on promotion their old salaries, plus the proportion of increment earned at the date of promotion, 1683 instead of suffering reductions of £134 and £157 per annum respectively; and, whether he will restore to them the portions of their salaries of which they have been deprived?
§ MR. HANBURYI have already stated that the staff officers referred to were in receipt of salaries of £365, while the commencing salary of the vacant clerkships of the upper division was £150. Also that there was no difficulty in obtaining competent officers for the latter at that rate of salary. In these circumstances, the Treasury declined to sanction the appointment of the two staff officers at their existing salaries, as being a very wasteful expenditure of public money. It was, therefore, for the officers to decide for themselves whether or not they would accept the clerkships upon the only terms on which the Treasury were justified in offering them, and their acceptance of the offer removes them altogether from the application of the Minute of 1st May 1890.