§ MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick)To ask the Postmaster General whether abstractors (assistant clerks) in the Post Office are not allowed to give evidence before the Post Office Committee of Inquiry; and, if so, seeing that the certificates of qualification issued by the Civil Service Commissioners in the case of such abstractors are made out specially for the Post Office, and that, unlike the second division, a fresh certificate of qualification is necessary if any one of these abstractors is transferred to another department, will he explain why such abstractors are not included in the scope of the inquiry.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) As I stated in Answer to the hon. Member for the Clithero Division of North-East Lancashire on 28th May last,† the class in question is one common to the whole Civil Service, and has boon, I presume, on that ground excluded from the inquiry in regard to Post Office servants.