MR. LAWRENCEI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, will he explain the circumstances under which an officer, formerly a travelling inspector in the north-west district, who in September last was reduced to the rank of a telegraphist on account of misbehaviour, was placed at the head of the sorting clerks and telegraphists at Liverpool, thus giving him preferential claim for promotion over 350 members of the Liverpool staff and to their prejudice in the matter of promotion; whether in cases of voluntary transfer, care is taken to avoid similar injury to the interests of other members of the staff; and, if so, whether the Postmaster General will extend the same principle in the case of disciplinary transfer?
§ MR. HANBURYIt is the practice of the Department when an officer is reduced from one class to another to place him at the top of the class to which he is reduced, and this practice was followed in the case to which the honourable Member refers; but it gives no preferen- 1222 tial claim to promotion. In the cases of voluntary transfer, it is the rule that each officer enter at the bottom of the class in the office to which he is so transferred. But the Postmaster General is not prepared to apply the rule to all cases of disciplinary reduction, as doing so would in many cases seriously increase the severity of the punishment.