§ MR. C. E. SHAW (Stafford)To ask the Postmaster-General with respect to the recent appointment of a junior selected from the Shrewsbury postal staff to the inspectorship of postmen at Stafford if he will explain what are the exceptional qualifications necessary for the appointment to and continued holding of that post; also will he state what educational examination or practical work and experience is doomed essential or necessary; and what facilities and opportunities are afforded to men already on the Stafford postal staff, whereby they may fit themselves for appointment to the post in question.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The necessary qualifications at Stafford, as 341 elsewhere, are capacity for control and supervision, and knowledge of the duties performed by postmen. No educational examination is deemed necessary for promotion to an inspectorship. In the Stafford post office, as in other post offices, the postmen who seem likely to make efficient inspectors are given opportunities of proving their fitness by trial on their duties as occasion offers. I may point out that the officer selected for the situation was an assistant inspector of postmen, and was already, therefore, of higher rank than the men over whom he was placed.