§ DR. FARQUHARSON (Aberdeenshire, W.)I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether it is intended to subject the assistant inspectors of the Board, who are graduates of a University, ex-officers in the Army and Navy, or who hold a diploma from one of the leading agricultural colleges, to a preliminary examination in dictation, writing, arithmetic, and English composition; and whether he will consider the advisability in the case of the assistant inspectors already appointed, who are either ex-officers, graduates, or the holders of a diploma, of testing their efficiency by examining them in the existing Acts and Orders of the Board of Agriculture which they have to administer.
§ MR. AILWYN FELLOWESIt rests solely with the Civil Service Commissioners to decide whether, in view of the possession of qualifications such as those to which the hon. Gentleman refers, they will, in any case, dispense with any further literary examination as a condition precedent to the grant of their certificate. Full particulars regarding any such qualifications will be placed before the Commissioners in each instance.