§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If it is the intention of the Secretary of State in Council to consider the grievance of paymasters of Her Majesty's Army serving in India at the time of the publication of the Royal Warrant, dated 27th January 1860, and who, up to the present, have not received any arrears of pay due to them from date of publication of Warrant up to 1st October 1868, having regard to the Report of the Select Committee on Arrears of Pay due to Officers of Royal Artillery and Engineers which has been given effect to recently, and to the fact that the Warrant of 27th January 1860 conferred upon paymasters the rank of honorary Majors, providing that such rank shall carry with it all precedence, and advantages, and allowances of pay, prize money, &c., attaching to the corresponding rank of combatant officers?
§ MR. E. STANHOPEThe case of the Majors of the Ordnance Corps and the Paymasters are not parallel. The rank conferred on the Paymasters was honorary only, and neither honorary nor relative rank ever carried pay in India. But when, in 1868, it was decided to improve the position of Paymasters in India, it was decided to take 1240 their honorary rank as a guide in fixing their pay. It was not a right which they could claim under Indian Regulations or the Royal Warrant of 1860, which contained the special rates of pay laid down in the Royal Warrant of 1857. It was a boon conferred by the Government of India, and there was no intention of departing from the practice by making it retrospective. The Secretary of State in Council does not, therefore, propose to do anything in the matter.