§ MR. NANNETTI (Dublin, College Green)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the scheme for improving the increments, but not the initial salary, of now class assistant clerks (abstractors) of the Civil Service will be shortly communicated to the Department; and whether the benefits will be extended to those clerks who have entered the service since the class was formed seven years ago, by placing them on a salary to which their number of years' service would entitle them under the new rules, and thus place them on a level with those who now enter.
(Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) (1) The Departments concerned were in formed of the scheme on the 21st ultimo. (2) I can hold out no hope that the retrospective benefits referred to in the Question will be given to assistant clerks appointed before 1st April last.