Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the-Postmaster-General, whether the Hob-house Committee must be understood to have fixed the scale of salaries of the women clerks in the Post Office in respect of the average character of their work; whether he has recently devolved certain of the simpler clerical or quasi-clerical duties hitherto performed by them upon a new class of assistant women clerks in the money order department; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that he has thus raised the average character of the duties in respect of which their scale of salaries was fixed, he has also raised the salaries of the women clerks?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe women clerks will not be called upon to perform any work of a higher character than that which the scale of pay recommended by the Select Committee was intended to remunerate.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTAs the right hon. Gentleman has taken away from these clerks their simpler elementary duties, and evolved them on to another set of clerks, does not that in itself raise the average 381 standard of the work performed by these clerks?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI do not think that the matter has been treated on the basis of average at all. The Hob-house Committee recommended a certain scale of pay for all the work done by these clerks. Some do higher-grade work and some lower grade. Those who do the higher grade were to be remunerated on a certain scale, and they are, in fact, now being remunerated on that scale.
Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTIs not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Hob-house Committee did fix the salary in respect of the average character of the work, and was not that admitted in a letter written by the right hon. Gentleman's own colleague?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELI should like to refer to the context of that letter.