§ Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the maximum pay of the class now known as the assistant superintendents, Class II., in the London postal service, but formerly known as inspectors, was £280 per year in 1890, which was increased to £290 in 1897 and to £300 in 1903; that these increases were made concurrently with increases in the pay of the classes they controlled; whether the Department, in its evidence before the Hobhouse Committee in 1907, stated that these increases of pay had not met the increase in the responsibility of the supervising classes; whether the Hobhouse Committee had, notwithstanding their evidence, reduced the maximum pay of the inspectors' class to the position it occupied in 1890, whilst at the same time recommending further increases in the pay of the subordinate classes; whether the Hobhouse Committee accompanied its recommendation with a suggestion that the inspectors should be merged with a class which did not exist in the London postal service; and whether, in view of the mistake which has been made, he will take steps to place the class upon its proper footing?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELThe Select Committee, after full inquiry as to the duties to be performed, recommended a rearrangement of the superintending classes and the merging the old class of inspectors into them as assistant-superintendents second class; the Committee also framed the scale of pay which has been adopted for them, and which will be found in paragraph 414 of the Report. The recommendations were explicit, and I regret that I do not see my way to depart from them. I can find no suggestion in the evi- 1481W dence of the Department that the responsibilities of the inspectors were not adequately paid for.