§ MR. SNOWDEN (Blackburn)To ask the Postmaster-General, in view of the fact that the question of increasing the percentage of appointments now allotted to boy clerks when competing for third class clerkships in the engineer's department has been in abeyance for several months, will he consider the advisability of at once increasing the percentage to 50 per cent. both in London and in the provinces.
(Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) I have recently arranged for 10 per cent. of the third class clerkships in the London superintending engineers' offices to be reserved for boy clerks in the engineering department, in addition to the same percentage of similar clerkships in the 1068 provinces which had previously been reserved for them. To increase the precentage of such appointments reserved for boy clerks could only be done at the expense of other classes of Post Office servants.