§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he can state the number of telegraphists in London now in receipt of £160 per annum, also the number 350 promoted from the £160 scale to the £190 scale during last year; and whether he will consider the advisability of completing the abolition of classification in the London telegraph service by allowing all telegraphists of good conduct and efficiency to proceed to the maximum of £190 per annum.
§ THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,) Worcestershire, E.The number of telegraphists at the Central Telegraph Office in London now in receipt of £160 per annum is 353. The number promoted during last year was thirteen. The abolition of classification in the London telegraph service was completed by the amalgamation of the first and second classes of telegraphists, under the recommendation of the Tweedmouth Committee, and the Postmaster General does not propose to disturb the arrangement. It was the opinion of the Committee that the class of overseers and senior telegraphists which has a maximum of £190 a year should be maintained as a separate class.
§ CAPTAIN NORTONI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether, seeing that from 1882 to 1892 the Civil Service Commissioners issued notices to intending candidates for the position of telegraphists in London to the effect that they would have a prospect of rising to £190 per annum, the maximum salary of a London telegraphist having now been fixed at £160 per annum, it taking twenty years before this sum is received, the Postmaster General will consider the desirability of taking steps to enable all those men who entered under the terms offered by the Civil Service Commissioners, namely, £190 per annum, an opportunity of receiving that salary.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe prospect of telegraphists at the Central Telegraph Office in London of rising to £190 has been in no way altered or diminished. Promotion to the class of overseers and senior telegraphists—formerly styled "senior telegraphists"—which has the scale of £160 by £8 to £190 a year—has always been subject to the occurrence of vacancies on that class, 351 and the Postmaster General does not propose to alter the rule in this respect.