§ MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)To ask the Postmaster-General if he can state on whose authority the postal superintendent at Belfast, on receipt of a memorial from individual members of the staff, questioned the memorialist as to whether or not assistance was secured by him in preparing the memorial, and demanded the name of the official who rendered such assistance; and was it with his sanction 585 that a male learner was recently severely reprimanded in the name of the Postmaster-General for hesitating to divulge the name of the individual to whom he was indebted under such circumstances.
(Answered by Lord Stanley.) As I explained to the hon. Member in my letter of the 30th of November, the superintendent saw that the memorial to which he refers related to an instruction to the postmaster which had not been circulated to the staff, and he acted rightly under the postmaster"s authority in inquiring how information had been obtained in regard to instructions which were regarded, and properly regarded, as confidential. A male learner, who refused at first to answer these inquiries, was warned, under my authority, that such refusal was regarded as an act of insubordination.