§ LIEUTENANT - COLONEL PHILIPPS (Southampton)To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that notice of discharge on reduction of establishment has been given to Mr. George Murray, temporary civil assistant of the Ordnance Survey Department in the Derby division, who is fourty-eight years of age and has nearly thirty-one years' service in the Department; and whether, taking into consideration that in 1891, when on outdoor employment on examination duty, ho met with an accident which, though it interferes with his outdoor work, does not interfere with his employment in office work, that in 1899 Colonel Washington, then director of the Map and Survey Department, Land Registry Office, London, was-willing to find Mr. Murray employment as draughtsman in that department,. and that Mr. Murray was anxious to be transferred from the Ordnance Survey, but that the then Director General of the Ordnance Survey was unable to spare him from the Ordnance Survey, that Mr. Murray's character is excellent and his work very good, being described by his superior officer as a very good surveyor and examiner, and a good draughtsman and tracer, and as being absolutely sober, trustworthy, and honest, and that he has given the best part of his life to the Government service, and that his age now debars him from obtaining similar or other employment elsewhere, he will consider whether some suitable employment cannot still be found for him in the Ordnance Survey Department.
(Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) My noble friend much regrets that it has been necessary to give notice of discharge to such an old public servant as Mr. Murray, but after full inquiry he is satisfied that there is no suitable employment for him, unless some better man is discharged from some other office to make room for him. Mr. Murray's application for transfer to the Land Registry in 1899 was refused, in accordance with a general rule forbidding such transfers, and not on the ground that he could not be spared from the Ordnance Survey.