§ MR. FIELDTo ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether abstractors (assistant clerks), according to their conditions of service, may aspire to promotion to the Second Division; whether, in several Government Departments in which abstractors are employed, many of the meritorious amongst them have been promoted to the Second Division; and whether, seeing that there are abstractors but no Second Division clerks now employed in the Exchequer and Audit Department, what provision is made in that Department for the future promotion of any deserving abstractors serving in it.
§ (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) The Answers to one and two are in the affirmative. If the case for promoting an abstractor in the Audit Office should arise, and it cannot arise under the rules for several years to come, the fact that there are no Second Division clerkships on the establishment of that Department would not be an insuperable obstacle.