§ MR. E. H. LAMB (Rochester)To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, in reference to the statement just issued by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, whether he can fix a date when an answer may be expected to the following requests which are stated therein to be still under consideration, viz., that smaller deductions may be made from the pay of hired men when placed on the establishment, and that overtime pay may not be subject to deduction, and that the wages of all chargemen of the principal trades at Chatham and Sheerness shall be assimilated and a definite scale of pay instituted.
(Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) I am not at present in a position to say when the decision will be announced in regard to the question of the deduction made from the pay of hired men when transferred to the establishment. As regards the other two points mentioned in the Question, instructions will be issued to the yards at an early date.