Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am ar 14 Mai 1924.
I should like to reply to one or two of the observations which have been made. The most important seems to me to be the one dealing with a White Paper setting out the financial position before the matter comes to Committee. It is too late to remedy that now, but the Deputy-Leader of the House tells me that that has been the practice in the past, and certainly we have no intention of doing other than carrying on that practice in the future. With regard to this Bill, I will see that a Financial Statement is prepared which shall be available to Members of the Committee upstairs. I think I can make the financial position clearer. It is anticipated that there will be a saving in the reorganisation of the Registrar's Department of £25,000 a year. The total cost in the first year, with regard to the increased remuneration to the minor officials and the registrars and everyone concerned, will be £79,000, of which £39,000 will go in immediate gratuities to about 127 minor officials who are over 65 years of age, and will be retired at once. They Will get a gratuity of about £300 each. That is what has been agreed. It is very easy to appeal on the ground that it would be desirable that they should have more. All I can say is that, with regard to every one of these matters, the increase of salary of County Court Judges, and such things as pensions to Judges' clerks, we should all like to do them, and we all feel they ought to be done, but the difficulty is to enable them to be done. There is nothing in this Bill which permits us to consider the increase of the salaries of County Court Judges. The Bill was not intended for that purpose.