§ 72. Mr. GOLDSMITHasked whether 120 Customs examining officers and port clerks have been appointed to the surveying grade during the past two years under the amalgamation scheme, but no Excise officers have been appointed; whether the allowance of £20 per annum promised as compensation for the reduction in the number of higher posts is not payable to an Excise officer until he has completed seven years more service than would have qualified him for promotion under the pre-amalgamation conditions; whether the Customs officers appointed to survey Excise work are necessarily unsuited to perform this duty; whether they have to be instructed in the work by those whom they have to supervise; whether, while payment for the insurance work is promised to both branches of the service, all the work is done by the Excise officers; and whether the payment for this work is in the form of an increased maximum which many of those now doing the work will probably not live to receive?
§ Mr. MONTAGUThe answer to the first part of the question is in the negative; to the second part, that there is no warrant for the assumption that promotion would have come to Excise officers at any fixed period of service; to the third and fourth parts, that surveyors of Customs origin are instructed at headquarters in Excise duties, and their superior officers report in satisfactory terms as to the manner in which they have performed those duties; the answer to the fifth part of the question is in the negative; and to the last part, that the new maximum was granted as payment for the whole of the work of the class, and was not earmarked to insurance work alone.
§ 73. Dr. CHAPPLEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the 1,550 officers and men employed on Customs and preventive duty in Scotland have made any complaint as to the conditions of their employment; and, if so, can he offer any encouragement to them in their hope that those conditions might be improved?
§ Mr. MONTAGUI have received and recently replied to representations put 1496 forward on behalf of the 1,550 Customs preventive officers and men in the United Kingdom, of whom 200 are stationed in Scotland. Further representations have now been received and are under consideration.