§ 67. Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether Lord Goschen, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, stated in this House on 31st March, 1890, that, with regard to Customs officers, one fact was quite clear, that rigid good faith must be kept with them and that they should have no reason to 2221 complain that the terms upon which they entered the service had been altered to their detriment; whether, under General Order, Customs, 5, 1913, the Board of Customs and Excise state that any member of the service who by the operation of an old scale is actually in receipt of a greater amount of leave than the new scale would give him will, in accordance with paragraph 255 of the Committee's Report, retain his right to that amount of leave; whether, in view of the former Chancellor's pledge and the acknowledgment by the Board of Customs and Excise of the right of certain of the officers to thirty-two days' leave, assessed on the arduous nature of their employment and recognised as such in the adjustment of their salary, he will reconsider his recent decision in the matter; whether all officers not entitled to thirty-two days are granted full leave with a war bonus in addition; and whether he will bear in mind the fact that most of these officers have wives and children to support on pre-war pay and that it is hard on them to be both deprived of leave due to them and at the same time to be denied either compensation for the loss of leave and no recognition of their services for the Crown under difficult conditions by the grant of a war bonus?
Mr. BALDWN (Joint Financial Secretary to the Treasury)I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I gave him on the 20th instant, and would repeat that a Civil servant's right to the maximum leave allowable to his class is, and has always been, a conditional right, subject to the requirements of the public service. To make it an absolute right, as the hon. Member suggests, would be, not to retain, but to improve, the terms on which men have entered the service. It is a mistake to suppose that the nature of the employment of the privileged officers in question is more arduous than that of the rest of the class to which they belong. It is precisely similar, and the Amalgamation Committee in 1911 distinctly laid down that it did not require a greater maximum leave than twenty-four days. The questions of war bonus and of annual leave are in no way connected.