§ MR. STUART (Sunderland)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now able to state the improvements he is prepared to make in the conditions of assistant inspectors of factories.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) Yes, Sir. In view of the more important duties which are about to be laid on the assistant class, the Treasury have at my request sanctioned certain improvements in the pay of that class. The minimum salary is to be raised from £100 to £110, while the whole body of forty assistants will be divided into two grades, each containing twenty men. The lower grade will be on the scale of £110 per annum, rising by £5 per annum to £150, and the higher grade on the scale of £150, rising by £5 per annum to £200. This arrangement will supersede the ten special allowances of £25 per annum each which are at present made to ten of the assistants. Sanction has also been given to an arrangement whereby an assistant of exceptional ability may occasionally be promoted into the ranks of the 52 inspectorate proper by means of an examination limited to the subjects relating to his duties without being-required to compete against outside candidates in the ordinary factory inspectors' examination. These new arrangements will take effect on the 1st of April next. This announcement will, I hope, give satisfaction to the assistants, and stimulate them to prove themselves worthy of the heavier tasks and greater responsibilities which they will be called upon to undertake.