§ 16. Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the First Commissioner of Works whether Mr. F. L. A. Ribton, an assistant clerk in the Stationery Office, with over ten years' service, has been declared dispensable for military duty while temporary clerks, introduced into the Department since the outbreak of war, have been granted exemption from military duty; whether Mr. W. R. Griffiths, an assistant clerk in the same Department, has been declared dispensable for military duty while a second division clerk of only one year's service, who is learning the work upon which Mr. Griffiths has been engaged, has been granted a certificate of exemption; and, if so, whether the decisions in the two cases may be reconsidered and an undertaking given that the question as to whether a man is or is not indispensable shall rest upon the work which he is doing, and not upon the grade to which he happens to belong?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. McKinnon Wood)As regards Mr. Ribton, the case is as stated. As regards Mr. Griffiths, the question does not state the facts either accurately or fully. Mr. Griffiths was absent from the office on military service for nineteen months. He returned five months ago as 1854 a time-expired man, and is liable to be called up again under the Military Service Act, 1916. Mr. Griffiths has not been engaged on the work now being performed by the second division clerk referred to, who has been in the office nearly two years, and is in charge of a large staff of men and women employed on war work. The Controller of the Stationery Office, with full knowledge of the circumstances, decided that the work done by Messrs. Ribton and Griffiths could be done by lady clerks, and he therefore declined to certify those officers as indispensable. In the case of certain other clerks, efficient substitutes could not be found, and he therefore certified such clerks as indispensable.