§ MR. YOXALL (Nottingham, W.)I bog to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, seeing that the Tweedmouth Committee recommended that at all offices where officers are divided into two classes (that is, offices in Schedule A) a double increment will be granted to officers at or after the age of twenty-four who have proved themselves qualified and are ready to serve as their services may be required on both the postal and telegraphic sides of the Department, whether he will explain why a number of telegraphists in Birmingham, qualified in postal duties in 1898, have not received the increments promised; and whether the Postmaster General will inquire if there has been a failure to carry out the recommendation of the Tweedmouth Committee in this respect.
§ MR. HANBURYThe special increment for dual qualifications is allowed to those officers only who are not bound by the conditions of their appointment to qualify in both postal and telegraph duty, and there are twelve telegraphists at Birmingham who have claimed a special increment; but it has not yet been decided whether at the time each of them was appointed he was liable to qualify in both duties. This matter is under consideration, and it will very soon be settled.