§ MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)To ask the Postmaster-General why the practice. adopted in former years of employing the senior sorting clerk and telegraphist as acting overseer is being departed from in the Belfast sorting office; and whether he is aware that this officer will be thereby deprived of the monetary advantage recommended by the Hobhouse Committee to an officer acting on a superior duty for two months.
979 (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) It is the general practice not to restrict employment on substitution to the senior officer of a class, but to take all reasonable opportunity for testing the qualifications of a number of those who are approaching the top of the class. No doubt this is what has occurred at Belfast, but I am having inquiry made.