§ Mr. MALCOLMasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that four letters have been addressed to him by the Engineer-in-Chief's Office (General Post Office) Supplementary Clerks' Association respecting the proposal to appoint a superintendent engineer's clerk to the engineer-in-chief's office, and begging for the postponement of such appointment pending the issue of the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Post Office Servants; whether he can state why no reply beyond a formal acknowledgment has been accorded to these letters; whether the officer proposed for the appointment was for some six years the chief clerk to the engineer-in-chief when the latter was superintending engineer of the North Wales district; and whether he will suspend action until the Select Committee's Recommendations have been published?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELA post for a first-class clerk attached to the engineer-in-chief's staff has recently been authorised, in addition to the previously existing establishment. The post has been created for the special purpose of co-ordinating the work in the different superintending engineers' offices, and it is necessary that the holder should have practical experience of the work of the districts. No officer on the engineer-in-chief's clerical staff possesses such experience, and the selection has therefore been made from the staff in the districts. The officer selected is a first-class clerk in the North Wales district, of which the present engineer-in-chief was superintending engineer for about six years. A reply has now been sent to the representations from the engineer-in-chief's staff, conveying an assurance that, pending the Report of the Select Committee, no promotion to an ordinary vacancy in the engineer-in-chief's office will be made from the district offices.