§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Kerry, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether any intimation was given to the registered men copyists promoted abstractors, under the conditions stated in the notice from the Civil Service Commissioners, dated 7th April, 1894, that they would be deprived compulsorily of the right, assured to them by the Treasury, of serving until they reached a maximum salary of £150 per annum, through an Order in Council carrying retrospective penal effects to come into force on 30th November, 1899; and, if not so intimated, can he state under what authority the Secretary of State for War claims to act in the case of two abstractors in the War Office, one of whom has made timely protest against being required to accept the terms of such retrospective penal enactment.
§ MR. HANBURYThe Treasury gave no assurance that the abstractors in question should serve until they reached a maximum salary of £150 per annum. As they were allowed to enter the class of abstractors up to the age of sixty, some of them might have claimed under such an assurance to remain till they were eighty or ninety years of ago. I explained to the hon. Baronet on the 5th instant that the Order gives full authority to the Secretary of State to call upon abstractors to retire at sixty.