§ CAPTAIN C. W. NORTON (Newington, W.)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty if he can state whether it is the intention of the Department to raise the minimum wage of the unskilled labourers employed in the Royal Victualling Yard at Deptford to that of the unskilled labourers employed under the War Department at Woolwich and elsewhere?
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTYIt is not intended to raise the minimum wage of the unskilled labourers at Deptford. In Woolwich, where our workmen are doing practically the same work side by side with the workmen under the War Office, the concession has been made, but the change could not be made at Deptford without taking into consideration the rate of wages paid to labourers in the other dockyards and naval establishments. In 1893 it was decided to give the men at Deptford an additional shilling a week, which appeared justified by the careful inquiries then made, but I am not prepared to still further widen the difference as compared with the large number of our labourers in other parts of the country.