§ MR. STEADMANI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that a clerk in the Liverpool Postal Department has been promoted to be a superintendent after twenty-five years service, and that sixty-nine telegraphists in the Liverpool Office are awaiting promotion to the clerks class, some of them having over thirty years service, many of them being established telegraphists at 656 the time the recently promoted officer was a corporal of messengers; and whether, in view of the Fawcett Scheme and the Tweedmouth Committee deciding that the Postal and Telegraphic branches of the Post Office should be placed on an equality, the Postmaster General will take steps to carry this into effect.
§ MR. HANBURYThis post of assistant superintendent on the postal side of the office was filled by the promotion of a clerk employed on postal duties who was reported to be the best qualified for the position. None of the sixty-nine telegraphists to whom the hon. Member refers would have been capable of performing the duties of the clerkship-vacated by the promoted officer. The Postmaster General takes every opportunity to equalise as far as possible the prospects on the postal and telegraphic sides; but cases must always occur in which promotion is more rapid on one side than on the other.