§ MR. A. ROCHE (Cork)To ask the Postmaster-General whether the subsistence allowance to surveyors of the Post Office when absent from head-quarters is intended as a source of profit; is he aware that the subsistence allowance of the head surveyor of the Southern District in Ireland, when absent from his head-quarters in Dublin, is not less than 21s. per diem, while his actual expenses do not exceed 50 per cent, of this amount; and, in these circumstances, will he explain why sorting clerks and telegraphists compelled to perform relief duties in country districts are expected to exist on a subsistence of 3s. per diem.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) It is a well-established Treasury principle that subsistence allowance is not intended as a source of profit, but rather as a repayment of necessary additional expenses involved by travelling. Obviously a different scale of expenses is warranted in the case of a high officer such as a surveyor and one occupying the position of a sorting clerk and telegraphist. I have 1193 no information as to the sums actually spent by surveyors. Their subsistence allowance is that commonly granted to all officers of similar standing in the Civil Service.