§ MR. CLAUDE HAY (Shoreditch, Hoxton)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that the Commissioners of Customs, when recommending that the annual leave of their assistant clerks who are engaged upon checking duties should be increased from fourteen to eighteen days, stated that this increase would involve no additional cost to the State, the Treasury will reconsider their previous decision and sanction this increase, which will place these men in the matter of leave on a footing with their colleagues in the majority of Government offices.
(Answered by Mr. Elliot.) The Treasury are not prepared to grant a general increase of annual leave to abstractors in the departments under their direct control, nor can they make a special exception in the case of such officers when employed in the Customs.