CAPTAIN NOETONI beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he has received a petition from the Committee of the London branch of the Telegraph Clerks' Association dealing with the claim that all operators should rise to a salary of £190 per annum, by reason of certain papers issued by the Civil Service Commissioners holding out this prospect; and whether, seeing that the Bradford Committee stated that these announcements on the part of the Commissioners were liable to misconception, he can state what compensation he is prepared to give to telegraphists who entered the service as a result of the inducements held out, and which have remained unfulfilled.
§ THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY, Lancashire, Westhoughton)I have received the petition to which the hon. Member refers, and I have informed the memorialists that I can find no justication for an increase in the maximum pay for telegraphists in the Central Telegraph Office. The hon. Member appears to have overlooked the paragraph in the Report of the Bradford Committee immediately preceding that from which he quotes. In it the Committee state 184 that they are convinced that there is no good ground for the allegation of breach of faith, and that they are satisfied that there is the same prospect now of attaining a salary of £190 a year as there was during the period when the announcements in question were made.