§ MR. STEADMAN (Finsbury, Central)To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that a Departmental Committee was appointed in 1902 to consider the system of training telegraphists that had been introduced contrary to the advice of telegraph administrators and the staff; whether he is aware that the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association proffered witnesses before this Committee, but the proposal was declined; whether the Report was issued in a confidential manner, and that it contains suggestions dealing adversely with the staff; and whether he can state the reason for withholding it from the consideration of the Select Committee on Post Office Wages, appointed in 1906 by this House.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) A Committee was appointed by one of my predecessors in 1902 to inquire into the working of the system of dual training, introduced in 1896 and endorsed by the Tweedmouth Committee in 1897. The Committee of 1902 had power to call such witnesses as they thought necessary, and they used their discretion in the matter. A Report was submitted to the Postmaster-General, but it was subsequently thought proper, before taking any definite action, to embody the same question in a reference of wider scope to another Committee in 1905. The present practice of the Post Office is based upon 293 the Report of this later Committee. Evidence was given to the Select Committee on Post Office Servants as to the system of dual training and the reasons for which it had been abandoned, except in certain cases. There would have been no objection whatever on my part to furnishing the Select Committee with copies of the Reports of the two Departmental Committees if they had asked for them, but as the Reports in question referred to a system of training which had been abolished, which I had no intention of reviving, and which the stall' did not wish revived, I do not think that they would have been of use to the Committee.