§ 51. Captain FRASERasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will consider the position of ex-assistant clerk (abstractors) now serving as clerical officers in the Civil Service who joined His Majesty's forces during the Great War arid who, prior thereto, qualified in open competitive examinations for second division clerkships; and whether, in view of the provisions of Clause 15 of the Order in Council of 29th November, 1898, and of the fact that clerks of the old second division mainly fill the executive and higher clerical grades of the service, consideration will be given to the question of promoting the ex-assistant clerks in question forthwith to posts in those grades, irrespective of any age limitations or of the particular Departments in which these officers are now serving?
§ The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel)The promotion of clerical officers to the executive and higher clerical grades of the Civil Service cars be dealt with on no other basis than their individual fitness for such promotion. My hon. and gallant Friend will agree that there can be no justification for the exceptional promotion of members of the clerical class of ex-assistant clerk origin merely on the ground that they qualified but were unsuccessful at the examinations referred to.
§ Captain FRASERWill my hon. Friend say whether it is a fact that certain pre-War civil servants who went through three or four years of war lost thereby their opportunity for promotion, and whether young people are being taken into the service in places which these ex-service men could fill?
§ Mr. SAMUELI think if my hon. and gallant Friend will look at Clause 45 of the Order in Council issued on the 10th January, 1910, of which I will send him a copy, he will see that his question is better answered than I could answer it by a reply to his supplementary question.