§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE (Wexford, N.)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he will state the actual and several amounts by which the Imperial Exchequer benefited through the compulsory retirement from the War Office of three efficient established "Abstractor Class" clerks, at the respective ages of sixty, sixty-two. and sixty-three, instead of their serving until the age of sixty-five; and whether, seeing that by this action their employment under the Crown, with full pay at increased annual increments of £5 instead of £2 10s., up to the age of sixty-five was thus lost to these clerks as also the increased super-annuation allowance to be earned by service until the age of sixty-five, he will state if the Comptroller and Auditor-General reported to Parliament upon this retirement of established Civil servants, and will he now take steps to refund to these clerks the moneys thus compulsorily obtained from each of them.
(Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) I am not prepared to give the hon. Baronet the details he desires in the first part of the Question. The figures asked for would require considerable actuarial calculation, which would produce no good result and would throw unnecessary labour upon the Department concerned. Ample information concerning the retirement of the three clerks has already been given to the hon. Baronet in reply to previous Questions on the subject. The reply to the last part of the Question is in the negative.