Money Order Department to hand over all the simpler duties to a new class of Assistant Women Clerks with an eight-hour day and a wage of 18s. rising to 34s. a week.  The Association of Post Office Women Clerks, the basis of which is “equal pay and opportunities for women with men in the Civil Service,” and which therefore necessarily stands for simplification of the classes of employment, regarded the restriction of a fresh grade of women to yet another water-tight compartment at a low wage as in itself an evil.  But apart from this, they looked upon the scheme as a deliberate evasion of the Hobhouse Committee’s recommendations.  So strong was the criticism levelled at the new scheme, both by Members of Parliament and the Press, that the Postmaster-General, Mr Herbert Samuel, consented to refer the matter to the Select Committee on the Post Office (known as the Holt Committee)[1], which was appointed in the early part of 1912, and he gave an undertaking that no more appointments to the new grade should be made in the Money Order Department until the Committee had reported, The value of this concession was considerably lessened by its limited application, and the fact that many Assistant Women Clerks were subsequently appointed to the London Telephone Service, clearly indicated the intention of the authorities to proceed with the development of the scheme in a Department which provided an easier field of operation in the shape of new work and a new staff taken over from the National Telephone Company.

In 1897 the class of Girl Clerks was created, to undertake some of the simpler duties in the Savings Bank Department, hitherto performed by Women Clerks.  They were subsequently introduced into the Money Order Department and the Controller’s Office of the London Telephone Service, and there are approximately 250 now employed.  They take the same examination as Women Clerks, but at a lower age—­sixteen to eighteen—­and are grouped apart for the purpose of marking.  Their hours of duty are seven daily, and their salary L42, raising by L3 per annum, to L48.  They are in reality a probationary class, and become Women Clerks automatically after two years’ service.  The introduction of this class was not considered by the Department to be an administrative success, as the obligation to make them Women Clerks in two years prevented their being employed in sufficiently large numbers to effect any appreciable economy.  The scheme for the introduction of the grade of Assistant Woman Clerk involved the abolition of the Girl Clerk.

The Women Clerks are an analogous grade to the Male Clerks of the Second Division who are common to the whole Civil Service, and they do practically the same class of work.  The examinations for the two classes are somewhat severe in character and are roughly comparable.[2] There is, however, a wide disparity in the salaries paid, as will be seen from the following comparison:—­

  SECOND DIVISION CLERKS.