the hon. Gentleman who spoke from this side of the House (Mr. Barry). I do not think the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury dealt with the case presented by my hon. Friend. I know it is usual for Members of the Government, under circumstances of this character, to say that particular instances of hardship should be furnished. It would be absolutely impossible for any hon. Gentleman to be able to ascertain with any degree of accuracy the many cases in which the postmen in rural districts are badly paid and the many instances in which their position deserves attention. My opinion is that the Government ought to deal with the matter in a broad and public-spirited manner as far as Ireland is concerned. In rural districts in Ireland, where the Post Offices are wide apart, it is no unusual thing for a man to have to walk 12 or 13 miles from one place to another and back again in a day, and that for the miserable stipend of 88. or 108. a-week. As to what the hon. Gentleman has said with regard to the pledges of economy given by hon. Members at the hustings, I would point out that cases of this kind could not have been included in those declarations, for the question here is simply one of fair play. Economy is all very well in its way; but it is not right to treat these unfortunate men in the manner in which they have been treated. There are cases where the roads are particularly bad, where the postmen have to travel long distances through districts where the weather is inclement for at least half the year. I put it to any hon. Member, is it right to require these men to walk many miles every day over mountain roads for, perhaps, 108. aweek, when English and Scotch postmen are paid more for travelling much smaller distances? THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. H. H. FOWLER): I stated the other night, in reply to a Question put to me by an Irish Member, that the wages of rural postmen in Ireland are 168. a-week. MR. DEASY: In England it is 258. MR. DEASY: The maximum in Ireland, I take it, is 168. THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. H. H. FOWLER): Not the maximum. Mr. Deasy MR. DEASY: Well, it is 168., whilst in England it is 258. At any rate, there can be no doubt about the circumstances to which my hon. Friend (Mr. Barry) has referred. I could, if I had time to do so, give numerous instances where rural postmen get considerably less than 168. per week, and to earn it have to walk enormous distances every day over particularly bad roads. I have only one suggestion to make with regard to the Parcel Post. There can be no question that a great deal of extra labour has been thrown upon these men by the introduction of this system by the Post Office. Seeing that the custom of sending large quantities of goods by Parcel Post is growing, I would suggest that in many of the country districts, where large distances have to be gone over by these postmen, the Government should entertain the idea of employing horses and cars for travelling purposes. There is no reason why men should be required to walk 24 miles a-day, when you can keep a car for about 22s. a-week. It seems to me only reasonable that the Post Office Authorities should consider this question. Horses should be used instead of the present mode of conveying the Parcel Post and the ordinary letters. I should also like to ask the Government how it is that in Ireland individuals are allowed to waylay postmen and take letters from them in the road, and why, when these individuals have been brought before the magistrates, the cases have been withdrawn against them? In the district in which I live a case of that kind has happened. A man, who is an official of the Grand Jury, a land agent, and I know not how many other things, waylaid a postman, forcibly opened the post-bag, and abstracted whatever letters he wanted. The Solicitor to the Post Office was sent down from Dublin to prosecute this person; but, strangely enough, when the case came before the magistrates the prosecution withdrew the charge. So that, instead of having to undergo an imprisonment of two years, as a member of the National League would have had to do for a similar offence, the guilty person, who belonged to the Loyal and Patriotic Brotherhood, is walking about the county of Cork at this moment just as free as he was before he committed the outrage. I hope that under the present Government the law will be meted out fairly and with an even hand, and that members of the Orange Society will not escape scot free in this way when members of the National League Association, for similar conduct, would be punished with the utmost rigour of the law. I shall put a Question in reference to this matter in the course of a few days; and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will give it his best attention. fixed. In estimating its price or quality we must judge of it as a private employer would judge of faithful service on the part of men placed in positions of trust. I feel confident that if increased wages were paid to these rural postmen in Ireland the Department would not have to complain of excessive expenditure, but would find that its receipts would grow sufficiently to recoup it amply for the outlay. SIR JOSEPH M‘KENNA : I will give MR. JOHN WILSON (Edinburgh, the hon. Member the Secretary to the Central): If the hon. Member who has Treasury (Mr. H. H. Fowler) an in- just sat down will kindly look at the net stance of the low rate at which some of results as well as the gross amount for the Irish rural postmen are paid. There Post Office services, he will find that the is a postman in my own neighbourhood Government has more benefit for the who travels 70 miles a-week, crossing £202,000 given in Scotland than from an arm of the sea twice, and receives for the £127,000 given in Ireland. [Sir it the magnificent salary of 128. per JOSEPH M'KENNA: I quite admit that.] week. He is breaking down in health, The hon. Member put it as though the and I promised some friends of his that Scotch services were higher paid. I I would take the earliest opportunity of contend that the Scotch service is much bringing his case forward.` I believe more extended, and is much more prothat is not the worst example of what ductive in its net results. Hon. Genoccurs by any means. Scotch Members tlemen must look at net results, and are always very keen to have a full not at gross sums; and if they do they share of any public expenditure. The will find that the amount of work hon. Member opposite (Mr. Boyd-Kin- done in Scotland is greater than the near) has not let this opportunity for amount done in Ireland. I agree with pressing the claims of Scotland to escape; what has fallen from some hon. Membut I would ask him to apply the sharpest bers on the other side of the House to edge of his intelligence to this proposi- the effect that the payments made to tion. The entire area of Scotland served rural postmen are inadequate. In Scotby the Post Office is less than the entire land we have post-runners. They are area of Ireland, and yet the outlay in very hard worked; they have to go out Ireland is only £127,857, whereas in every day, no matter what the weather Scotland it is £202,000-a proportion of is-be it good or bad, sunshine or 12 to 20. Will the hon. Gentleman the rain. They have to travel over very Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. H. H. heavy roads and very long roads; and Fowler) apply his mind to this matter? I think it is a circumstance well I do not say the Scotch postal servants known to the Post Office authorities receive too much money; but I wish that these men, on an average, are shortthose of Ireland to get paid on the scale lived. Many of them are frequently that prevails in Scotland and England. laid up from sickness caused by the On the whole, the Scotch service is as hardships they have to undergo. I well paid as the English; but I know agree with the Secretary to the Treasury the Irish service is worse paid. With that we are all on this (the Ministerial) regard to the competition for employ-side of the House pledged to economy; ment under the Post Office and the low rate of wages paid, the Secretary to the Treasury has said that the Government has no right to obtain the services of these men at too low a rate, compared with the ordinary rates in the labour market, nor at too high a rate. But it must be remembered that Post Office employment is sui generis. There is no comparing it with the ordinary labour, upon which market rates of wages are VOL. CCCII. (THIRD SERIES.] but, at the same time, it is clearly false economy to underpay any class of public servants, more especially hard-working and poor men, who discharge an important service to the State-a class whose pay is small, whose work is hard, and whose lives are comparatively short. I agree with the hon. Member who says that economy may be reached by devoting attention, when we revise the Estimates, to the reconsideration of all 2 T salaries, in order to see whether, as the higher class posts become vacant, we cannot curtail the higher salaries-those, I mean, from £500 to £1,000 and £1,500 -and eke out a little more the salaries of such public servants as these rural postmen with whom we have so much sympathy. COLONEL NOLAN: I cannot regard it as altogether a satisfactory state of things that the Secretary to the Treasury should have in this House to attend to the business of the Post Office as well as do his own work. I know he has a great deal to do in his own particular Department; therefore, when I see that he has to deal with all the grievances which are raised in the House of Commons in regard to Post Office matters, I must say I think we ought to have someone here especially to represent the Post Office. However, as the hon. Member is so efficient in other Departments, perhaps he will be able to set right a matter which I will proceed to bring under his notice. After a great deal of pressure £6,000 was given for the purpose of accelerating the mails in Ireland. That was a handsome sum to grant; but, at the same time, it has been so granted that two-thirds of my consti tuents THE CHAIRMAN: I must call the hon. and gallant Member's attention to the fact that this increase refers only to the salaries of postmasters. COLONEL NOLAN: I think I am speaking to the point, Sir; for I imagine the salary of the postmaster or postmasters ought to be reduced for not properly attending to this matter, or possibly ought to be increased. The point is a very obvious one. I cannot, as a private Member, propose an increase of the Vote; but I would, on the principle laid down by the hon. Gentleman who spoke last, suggest that if the officials concerned were properly paid we should find this work much better attended to. Again, perhaps it is rather a question of organization than of payment; and of course, Sir, if you rule me out of Order, I will not press the question. I wish to explain that the district of Tuam and North Galway generally is suffering from this grant of £6,000 a-year. It is suffering from this acceleration of mails, and in this very simple way. There are two cross lines of railway, one of which gets money for the purpose of Mr. John Wilson accelerating the mails, whilst the other does not; and the result is that the district I refer to loses a post THE CHAIRMAN: I must again call the hon. and gallant Gentleman's attention to the fact that he is wandering from the Question before the Committee. COLONEL NOLAN: In that case, Sir, I will not press the subject further. MR. JOHNS: We are here to look into the public Expenditure; and I would ask, therefore, is this not a question of supply and demand more than anything else? Where there is one vacancy under the Post Office there are a dozen men anxious to fill it. Although it may appear ungracious to disagree with Irish Members opposite, seeing it is now the fashion to agree to all they desire, I am bound to say that this seems to me simply a question of supply and demand. I therefore think it would be a bad policy to vote for any Public Department, either in Ireland or Scotland, paying higher wages than the men are prepared to take. MR. T. C. HARRINGTON: I sympathize very much with what has been said as to the necessity of increasing the salaries of some of the rural postmen and postmasters. I am aware that there are considerable complaints in some districts in Ireland in regard to postmasters having the option of delivering letters on Sundays or not, as they please, and that many people desire to see new regulations made for dealing with this matter. Considerable inconvenience is occasioned to the public by the postmasters possessing the option I refer to; because in many cases persons only come into the rural towns to which their letters are addressed on Sundays; and if they do not get their letters on that day they have to go without them for a considerable time. The present regulation is a very objectionable one, though it seems to me it will occasion very little inconvenience to the postmasters if it is altered. The authorities ought to remedy the evil. There is a point in connection with these rural postmen which I think the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury has not grasped. He has said. that their minimum salary is 16. per week. There is an entire misapprehension as to that. If these men were regular officials of the Post Office, no doubt 168. would be the minimum; but many of them are not. They are regarded as | had been discovered in the accounts of the employés of the postmasters and sub- Admiralty; and that statement was suppostmasters. The postmasters and sub-plemented by another statement to the postmasters, of course, have a reason for practising economy which they would not have if they were dealing with the money of the Post Office. Although it has been stated here that the minimum salary of these postmen is 16s. per week, in many cases it is 108. per week, or less. MR. BARRY: I am glad, at all events, to hear that the salary of the regular employés is not less than 16s. per week. I think, however, that what has been said has been sufficient to induce the Post Office authorities to make a general inquiry into this matter. I agree with the principle that the payment of State servants should be according to the laws of supply and demand; but whilst I agree with that principle, I object strongly to its being rigorously enforced against the lower grade servants, whilst it is not applied to the higher grade servants. I happen to know that in the Dublin Post Office there are a number of gentlemen with salaries ranging from £300 to £1,500 a-year, who, if we applied this principle of supply and demand to them, would be receiving much less salaries. I hope the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury will have a hand in framing the Estimates for next year; and if he has, I trust he will take care to apply the principle laid down to-night, and apply it impartially, both to the higher and lower grade servants. effect that it had hitherto been the practice of the Construction Department of the Admiralty to minimize the work done by contract, so as to insure a balance on the Contract Vote, with which balance they made up any deficiency that might arise in the Dockyard Vote. Now, the meaning of that statement, if it were true, would be that this House had been asked, year after year, to vote more money for work to be done by contract than was wanted for that purpose; that, systematically, less work than had been agreed to by the House was done by contract in private yards; that the work was kept back in order that each year there might be a balance; and that that balance, instead of being handed into the Exchequer, had been appropriated to the purposes of another Vote altogether; that the Dockyards had been conducted in such a way that a much larger sum had been spent in them than was authorized by Parliament; and that the deficiency in them was made good by money which was saved off the Contract Vote. I asked my hon. Friend the late Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Ritchie) a Question in reference to the subject, and I ascertained from him that the statement as to the deficit of £200,000 was not quite correct. As a matter of fact, the hon. Gentleman had so pushed forward the contract work that £170,000 worth of work had been done more than had been estimated for and voted for by Parliament. I am not going to challenge the wisdom of pushing the work on. It would doubtless have (12.) 2,500 Men and Boys, Navy. been more regular had a closer estimate (13.) Motion made, and Question pro-is much more profitable to the country to been made; but I am of opinion that it posed, have its shipbuilding pushed forward rapidly. It is anything but an economic Vote agreed to. NAVY (SUPPLEMENTARY ESTI- "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £308,400, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of pay-system to keep a ship on the stocks for ment during the year ending on the 31st day of six, seven, eight, or nine years, when it March 1886, to meet additional Expenditure for could be turned out in three years; Navy Services." therefore, I do not at all challenge that portion of the matter, and I do not intend in the least to find fault with my hon. Friend (Mr. Ritchie) for pushing forward the work by contract. But he went on to say, in reply to the second part of my Question, that for some years past the whole amounts inserted in the Estimates for contract work had not been so expended; but considerable DR. CAMERON: Mr. Courtney, the Vote now before the Committee contains an item of £32,200 as a Supplementary Grant for Naval Dockyards at Home and Abroad. I propose the reduction of the Vote by this amount. Some weeks ago a statement appeared in one of the leading newspapers to the effect that another deficit, amounting to £200,000, sums had been utilized for the purchase | careful process of examination. In the of stores and for Dockyard wages. He added that in five years a sum of £300,000 voted by this House for work to be done by contract in private yards had not been used for that purpose, but paid to make good deficiencies in the accounts of the Dockyards. Now, that appears to me to be a very improper system. It was discovered, apparently, orly accidentally. Had the permanent officials been allowed to keep back the work done on contract as usual, we should have had a similar excess in the Contract Vote forthcoming this year also to pay for the excess of expenditure in the Dockyards, and this sum now before the Committee would not have come under our cognizance. It is lucky that the energy of my hon. Friend (Mr. Ritchie) was the means of his discovering this irregularity. When we have this sort of thing occurring year after year-and it appears to have amounted to a system-I think we should take cognizance of the matter, and mark our disapprobation of the system by a reduction of the Vote. There can be no doubt we cannot have the smallest control over the expenditure so long as this kind of thing is allowed to go on. I do not mean to say that the transfer of this money from one Vote to the other has been illegal. I believe that the formal sanction of the House is asked every year; but it is asked at a time when no one knows anything about it. I am certain the statement of the hon. Gentleman the late Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Ritchie) must have been a revelation to most Members, even to old Members of the House; and I have no doubt that the discovery must have been a revelation to the hon. Gentleman himself when he made it. I move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £32,200. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Item of £32,200, for Dockyards at Home and Abroad, be omitted from the proposed Vote."-(Dr. Cameron.) THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. HIBBERT): I do not find fault with my hon. Friend (Dr. Cameron) for raising this question; at the same time, I think that he has made rather more of the complaint than he is justified in doing, considering that no excess is transferred from one Vote to another without the matter going through a very Dr. Cameron first place, the Department cannot apply money which has been voted for contract work to any other work without the consent of the Treasury, and then the transfer has to be passed by the Public Accounts Committee, and placed in the Appropriation Account. Therefore, there are three different processes through which the matter has to go before it can receive public assent. At the same time, I quite agree with the principle my hon. Friend has enunciated-namely, that it is not a desirable thing, supposing it is done intentionally, that the Department should put down for any particular Vote a larger sum than they know will be employed, with the intention of using the surplus for other purposes. It is desirable that, with regard to every Vote, the fullest information should be obtained by the Department, and that the Estimate should be prepared in accordance with that information. Now, upon the particular point to which allusion has been made, and which has given rise to the application to the House for the payment of £32,000 upon the Contract Vote, I must say that I do not find fault either with the Admiralty Department for any mistake they have made to cause this excess-I do not find fault either with the late Liberal Government or with the late Conservative Government in respect of it, and for the very reason that I believe the whole cause of this increased demand for contract work is entirely owing to the depression in trade which exists in the country. There are very few of the shipbuilding yards to which these contracts have been given where there is much work going on except Government work; and I am informed that it has been necessary for the different contractors to push on our work more rapidly than they would fact that they have no other work, or have otherwise have done owing to the very little other work, in their yards. Well, I do not think we should find fault with the contractors for getting through the work as rapidly as they can; and I do not think that it is anything but in the interest of the nation that the ships which are being built should be completed as soon as possible. Of course, it is very unpleasant not to have calcu lated or taken a sufficient amount for what we require. Now, the facts are these. For the machinery of the various |