§ SIR THOMAS ESMONDE, (Wexford, U.)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will give a reference to the authority under which Departments are given full discretion to call upon efficient established clerks in the Civil Service with less than forty years of service to retire at the age of sixty, and whether any such power was in existence in 1871; or when the Treasury Minute of December, 1886, was issued requiring temporary copyists to forfeit any gratuity earned by them when promoted to the establishment; also whether he will state if the destination of these forfeited gratuities as well as the sums to be confiscated by the exercise of this power of discretionary retirement at the age of sixty, while efficient and with less than forty years of service, was laid down; whether this power of discretionary compulsory retirement at the age of sixty was made known to these temporary copyists at the time of their proposed beneficial promotion; and whether one of them was officially informed in 1894 that he could not, under the regulations then existing, and would not, if efficient, be called upon to retire before the age of sixty-five.
(Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish.) Discretion has always rested with the head of a Department to call upon any of his officers to retire at the age of 174 sixty; and attention was expressly called to this power in the Order of Council of August, 1890. No question arises as to forfeiture of gratuity in the circumstances referred to in the Question. Gratuities were only payable upon retirement, and a temporary copyist when promoted to the establishment became eligible for a pension instead. I have no knowledge on the point raised in the last sentence of the hon. Baronet's Question.