To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether a new scheme governing the pay of Second Division clerks is about to come into force; whether those Second Division clerks now serving have been offered by his Department the opportunity of being placed in receipt of that salary to which they would have been entitled had this new scheme been in existence at the dates of their appointments; and, if so, whether he will state what reasons there are why a similar concession was not extended to the new class of assistant clerks when the scale of pay of that body of Civil Servants was altered in 1905.

Certain changes in the scale of salary fixed for the Second Division clerks are being contemplated, but I am unable at this stage to give my hon. friend any detailed information. There is, however, no analogy between the cases of the assistant clerks referred to and the clerks of the Second Division.