§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Wexford, N.)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Order in Council of 15th August 1S90 applied to the abstractor, class of clerks on 20th October 1894, on 27th January 1897, or even on 14th September 1899, on which date an efficient established abstractor formally protested against being compelled to come under Clause 10 of that Order.
(Answer.) Clause 10 of the Order of August 1890—as extended by Clause 18 of the Order of November 1898—became applicable to the Abstractor Class for the first time on 29th November 1899. But apart from Orders in Council there is a right inherent in every head of Department to retire an officer at any time at which he considers that the interests of the service make it desirable.—(Treasury.)
§ MR. NANNETTI (Dublin, College Green)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that officials known as abstractors perform precisely similar duties as second division clerks, and seeing that the latter class of Civil Servant receives an initial salary of £70 1268 a year, rising rapidly to £250 and higher, while it takes an abstractor twelve years to reach £100 a year and twenty-two years to reach the maximum of £150; will he take steps to obtain from the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury their sanction to an improvement in the prospects of abstractors, considering that abstractors have had training in Government duties as boys.
(Answer.) The scale of salary for abstractors is not peculiar to the Post Office but is general for the various public departments in which abstractors are employed, and the Postmaster General sees no reason to make any representation on the subject so far as the officers of the abstractor's class in the employment of the Post Office Department are concerned.—(Post Office.)