£3,000,000 CLAIM.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15999, 30 May 1924, Page 2

£3,000,000 CLAIM.

WAY DELAY PENNY POST. Mr Snowden, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, may have to meet an unexpected charge on the State of about £3,000,000. This sum, if is estimated, would be required to meet the claims of about 100,000 Civil Servants and Post Office workers should they win a number of test cases which are now being examined by the Law Officers of the Grown.

The claims arise out of the judgment, in favour of a post office telegraphist named Sutton in a case which went to the Lords in 1922. The then claim was in relation to an agreement by the post office to pay their men who enlisted in the Royal Engineers during the war civil pay in addition to army pay. The Sutton judgment entitled about 10,000 men to additional war bonuses. A sum of £1,250,000 was involved, most of which has already been paid. Sutton was a married man, and the new cases claim similar treatment for single men. There is reason to believe that the law officers have warned the ChanceL lor thai, there is a. possibility of the claims being upheld by the courts. This, it will be found, has played <in important part in the deliberations of the Cabinet on the possibility of restoring penny postage in rhis year's Budget, since the post office estimate-.! surplus would not be sufficient to meet the additional cost as well as the claims.