§ Mr. FIELDasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the period that will elapse before the majority of assistant clerks (new class) who have been promoted to the second division will reach a salary equivalent to the maximum salary of the assistant clerks' class, and that during this interval clerks of equal service who have not been promoted to the second division, and who are presumably of inferior calibre or attainments, will have a larger salary and for a considerable time equal increments with those who have been promoted after tests as to their capacity and educational requirements; and whether, in view of the representations made to the Treasury by the heads of the departments in which such promoted clerks are serving as to the treatment meted out to these clerks, and having regard to the further facts since placed before them, the Treasury will now reconsider their attitude in the matter?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEI have nothing to add to the answer given to the hon. Member on 7th April.
§ Mr. FIELDasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the two recent circulars issued by them, one granting advances of salaries to assistant clerks as such, and the other granting advances of salaries to second division clerks as such, ignored in each instance the existence of a body of clerks who had been promoted from one grade to the other; whether these clerks have therefore served for a certain period on salaries and increments which were admittedly insufficient for either assistant clerks or second division clerks, and which no alteration in prospects or status can compensate for, and on what grounds the Treasury decline to remove this condition which affects men whose salaries are still very small, and whose fellow clerks who passed their entire service either in the second division or as assistant clerks have both had compensation given to them in respect of the period for which the promoted assistant clerks have received no allowance either as assistant clerks or second division clerks?
§ Mr. HOBHOUSEI am unable to admit that second division clerks already promoted from assistant clerkships have any grievance in respect either of the revision of the scale of the second division or of the recent concession to assistant clerks as such.