§ MR. JOHN CAMPBELL (Armagh, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that students who were in the Irish training colleges at the time of the abolition of the results system, and who are now engaged as principal teachers, are losing from £10 to £80 per annum, according to the size of their schools; and whether, in view of the effect of this on the training colleges, in as much as students are reluctant to enter the service of the Board under the present scale of salaries, he will invite the Commissioners to reconsider the whole question of the salaries of Irish national teachers.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) In the case of teachers already in the service who were in training in 1900, when the new system of payments came into operation, any promotion in classification which they received as the result of their training and which would have involved an increase in salary under the old regulations was considered when fixing their 112 initial incomes under the new regulations. The new incomes are capable of increases, within the limits of the scales, by increments of good service salary and by promotion in grade, and though there may be cases in which principal teachers are actually receiving less incomes than they might have received under the old regulations, yet, when it is considered that their incomes under the old regulations were liable to grave fluctuations owing to the system of payment by results and that their new incomes are not so liable to fluctuation and are of a progressive character, the position of the teachers as a body is better under the new regulations than under the old. The Commissioners have no evidence that the falling off in the number of men candidates for training colleges last year was directly attributable to the new system of salaries, and this year there has been an all round increase in the number of men candidates seeking admission to these institutions.