§ MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick)To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether a new scheme for boy clerks is at present under consideration in Government Departments; whether the scheme provides for the payment to assistant clerks at twenty-five years of age of the salary of £85 per annum; and, if so, whether the Treasury will reconsider the scheme, so that the scale of salary may be made at least equivalent to the scale recently conceded to male sorters in the Post Office.
(Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) The Answer to the first two parts of the Question is in the affirmative. The 1069 recent concession to the male sorters in the Post Office was made on the recommendation of the Committee, of which I was Chairman, upon the ground that a sorter attains full efficiency after five years of service, which, of course, is not true of an assistant clerk. But sorters work longer hours, and the conditions of service in the two cases are so different as to make inapplicable the comparison suggested.