§ MR. SUMMERBELL (Sunderland)To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he has recently received resolutions from the Kew Employees Union and the Kew Guild, protesting against the gardeners at Kew being called apprentices; and, if so, will he state whether in the form of application for a situation as gardener at Kew, there is any reference whatever to the term apprentice; and, if not, will he see that the men are called gardeners in future by the Department.
(Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The reply to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative, and to the second in the negative. The question of the most appropriate designation of the grade is now under consideration. Perhaps I may take this opportunity of saying that my use of the term "apprentice" has apparently been misunderstood. I used it in no derogatory sense, but merely to convey to the House the idea that the young gardeners in question were afforded opportunities of instruction and self-culture in an advanced school of horticulture.