MR. PATRICK O'BRIENTo ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that some of the tube attendants of the Central Telegraph Office have been in receipt of the maximum salary for four years—viz., 30s.; and, seeing it has been the practice to recruit lobby officers with a maximum salary of 40s. per week from the tube attendant staff, will he explain why a vacancy in the higher class is to be given to persons other than the tube attendants.
(Answered by Mr. Austen Chamberlain.) Five of the tube attendants in the Central Telegraph Office have been for four years in receipt of wages at the maximum of their scale. The class of lobby keepers is no longer recruited from the class of tube attendants, it having been found that police pensioners were better fitted for the duty. The only vacancy in the class of lobby keepers which has occurred this year will not be filled up.