The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-22 00:00:00

Watersidc Department :
Weighers.
Gaugers.
Lockers.
Landing-waiters and searchers.
Water Guard Department :

Boatmen. -
Tide-waiters.
As to appointments and promotions of officers, my lords
concur in the principle laid down by the commissioners, that
a marked distinction of classes must be recognised and is
essential to the efficiency of a department in which kinds of
service essentially different are combined under one superin-
dence and control. Neither seniority nor respectability eau
constitute any title to promotion from a class requiring one
of these kinds of service to a class requiring another, and the
admission of any such title, which might readily grow up
under the notion of indulgence and liberality, would be most
detrimental to the public service. But my lords approve of
carrying universally into effect the principle of promotion
according to real fitness and merit, irrespective not only of
interest from without, but even of distinctions of class in the
' service itself. These distinctions raise a general presumption
against promotion from the rank of weigher, through the rank
of locker, to that of landing-waiter; but they do not consti-
tute, in the judgment of my lords, a sufficient objection to
such promotion in individual cases where persons shall have
undeniably and conspicuously shown their fitness in all essen-
tial respects for such promotion.
According to the existing rules, the promotion of weighers
is confined to the office of lockers, but they are not excluded
from the office of gauger, if recommended by the Treasury,
and tide-waiters are at present confined in their promotion to
become tide-surveyors. They cannot become landing-waiters.
This distinction has been instituted in consequence of the very
different character of the duties which are performed by the
two classes of officers, and of the qualifications required at the
original appointment. My lords recognise, in the grounds as
stated by the Commissioners of the Customs, a sufficient rea-
son for retaining the geasral distinction which at present
exists ; but referring to the fact that a weigher must be
advanced nine steps before he becomes a superintending
locker of the first class, and that a tide-waiter must be
advanced through seven stages before he becomes a first-class
tide-suryeyor, which must not only bo a guarantee for con-
siderable personal merit, but also for a long experience, my
lords are of opinion, that hereafter any officer who has filled
the position of locker or of a first-class tide-surveyor for at
least three years, and shall at the time be a superintending
locker, shall be eligible to be recommended as fit for appoint-

went as landing-;aiter,and that every such superintending
locker or first-class tido suryeyor shall, at any time after
three years' service in that capacity, be entitled to claim to be
examined as to his fitness for landing-waiter, and shall, if
found to be so, be reported to my lords as qualified for such

appointment, and that thereafter the Treasury may appoint
such officers to be landing-waiters. And, moreover, that the
Commissioners of Customs shall have the privilege of recom-

mending officers of this class, of unusual merit, and who shall
have distinguished themselves specially by their good con-
duct, in the proportion of one in every five vacancies which
shall occur in the landing-waiters' department, and that the
same shall be so appointed as a special reward for meritorious
conduct.