MR. PATRICK O'BRIENOn behalf of the hon. Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, will he explain why five sorting clerks, namely, Messrs. Aird, Beatty, Bleech, Harris, and O'Reilly, employed in the General Post Office, Dublin, who passed a competitive examination on the 15th July, 1896, along with fifteen others, were not sent up for the final Civil Service examination until July, 1897, although the fifteen candidates referred to were appointed in the months of February and March, 1897; whether a rule of 30th October, 1896, granting only 18s. per week starting pay to entrants under nineteen years of age, was made applicable to their case on the 1191 grounds of non-employment previous to that date; will he explain on what grounds seven sorting clerks, successful at the same examination, who had exceeded nineteen years of age, entering the Dublin office in the months of November and December, 1896 (after the rule of 30th October was formulated), were paid a starting wage of 20s., and got three weeks annual leave; and whether, in view of the circumstances of the case, these five men would be placed on the same footing as their seven fellow clerks now in receipt of 28s. per week and three weeks annual holidays.
§ MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAINThe officers named received starting pay of 18s. a week because they were not placed on the establishment until after the date of the Tweedmouth Revision (1st April, 1897), and thus came under the scales originated by that revision. The reason why they were not appointed sooner was because there was in the ordinary official routine no call for their services on the established class until after the 1st April, 1897. Their selection as candidates for permanent employment implied no promise of appointment to an established situation, nor any undertaking by the Department to find permanent employment for them. Those other officers who were appointed to established posts before the 1st April, 1897, were, of course, entitled to the scales of pay and annual leave in force at the time, and their case is not parallel. The Postmaster General cannot, therefore, undertake to alter the starting pay or the amount of annual leave granted to the five officers in question.