§ MR. YOXALLI beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, in view of the fact that a telegraphist having been kept at the efficiency barrier for one year and then being permitted to proceed suffers a loss of salary each year until he arrives at the maximum, whether the Postmaster General can state the reasons which led the Department to treat the stoppage of an increment at the efficiency barrier in an exceptional manner; and whether the Postmaster General will consider the advisability of placing it upon the same footing as an ordinary arrestment of increment.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINIt is a fact that a telegraphist who has been stopped at the efficiency bar, and who is subsequently allowed to proceed when efficient, has every year, until he reaches his maximum, a less salary than he otherwise would have had. The increment which takes an officer over the efficiency bar is treated in a different manner from ordinary increments, because it was intended to mark the attainment of a definite standard of efficiency at a certain point in the officer's career. The efficiency bar was instituted in order to ensure that no one should proceed to the maximum of the telegraphist's scale of pay without substantial guarantee of his efficiency and of the excellence of his conduct. To pass the efficiency bar is, therefore, equivalent to promotion to a higher class, and a man who fails through his own fault to pass the bar in the first instance has no claim to be relieved of the consequences. It 75 is not in contemplation to alter the system which now prevails.