§ MR. THORNTON (Clapham)To ask the Postmaster-General whether his attention has been called to the fact that a copyist recently employed in the General Post Office, and who is now sixty-four years of age, has quite recently been promoted to be an assistant clerk (abstractor class) without examination, although he had failed in his examination, for a like position, in 1893; and whether he can explain the action of the Post Office, with the sanction of the Treasury, in compulsorily retiring a senior assistant clerk in the Post Office at the age of sixty-one on a pension of 15s. a week.
(Answered by Lord Stanley.) It was recently found desirable to absorb as many as possible of the few men copyists remaining in the Post Office by appointing them to the class of assistant clerks. As the change was for the advantage of the service no examination was imposed. One of the officers thus treated is sixty-four years of age. The case of the assistant clerk to whom the hon. Member refers as having been retired at the age of sixty-one was carefully con- 92 sidered by my predecessor, who decided that his retention in the service would not be in the public interest. I see no grounds for dissenting from this decision.