§ MR. NANNETTITo ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that, in the East Central section of the London postal service, a senior postman and lobby officer, in receipt of 44s. per week, has been promoted to the position of overseer at a salary of £170 per annum; and that sorters in receipt of £160 per annum, who are senior in service to this 291 officer and who have been performing overseers' duties for various periods during the last two or three years to the satisfaction of their superior officers, have been passed over; and, if so, whether he will consider, in the interests of economy, the advisability of filling all overseers' vacancies in future from the sorters' class.
(Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am aware that a senior postman and lobby officer with wages of 44s. per week has recently been promoted to the position of overseer. No questions of passing over officers on the sorters' class, however, arose, as the appointment in question was one for which senior postmen and lobby officers only were eligible. The practice of filling a fixed proportion of vacancies on the class of overseers from the postmen's force has obtained for many years past, and I am not prepared to direct that all overseerships shall in future be filled solely from the sorters' class.