§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state if, since the increase of the working hours of Customs watchers to 54 per week, their overtime rate of 8d. per hour has been reduced to 6d.; whether they have been deprived of their former cab allowance of 1s. 6d. for attendance at 6 a.m. and up to midnight; and whether, seeing that these overtime charges for watchers are always paid by the merchant, who has never objected to the overtime rates, he will consider the advisability of having these overtime privileges 1072 restored to the watchers, more especially as all their overtime is made by inconvenient and very long attendances?
§ MR. HANBURYIt is not correct to say that the hours of Customs watchers have been increased or their overtime rate reduced. They both remain as settled as when the class was originally formed, and they were accepted as the conditions of employment by all the men appointed to the class. It is a fact that some of these men had formerly been employed as permanent labourers and extra men, on conditions which were, in some respects, more advantageous, and in other respects less advantageous, than those of Customs watchers. But one of the objects in view in the institution of this class was to secure uniformity where the conditions had previously varied without reason, often as the result of traditional practice and not under definite authority. The abolition of the so-called cab allowance is a reform which applies to the Customs Service generally. A man who formerly received a cab allowance now receives an hour's overtime instead. It is not the case that overtime charges for watchers are always paid by merchants, or that merchants accept without question all the claims made upon them on that score. I see no occasion to reconsider these conditions, which have been laid down after due consideration, and have been accepted by those to whom they apply.