MR. H. S. WEIGHT (Nottingham, S.)asked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether his attention had been called to a despatch No. 43, P.W. of 28th March, 1870, from the Viceroy (the Earl of Mayo) and Council of India, addressed to the Secretary of State in Council, in which the Government express their gratification that Her Majesty's Government were likely to receive favourably a proposal to equalize the pay of the Military and Civil Branches of the Public Works Department, and further recommend that the furlough allowances and pensions of civil engineers shall be equalized with those of military officers in the Public Works Department; and also to a despatch No. 18, P.W. 22nd of March, 1883, addressed to the Government of India by the Secretary of State (the Earl of Kimberley), which stated—
The opinion has already been expressed by my Predecessors that the position in the Department (of Public Works) of military and civil engineers should, as far as possible, be assimilated, and the time has, in my opinion, arrived when the distinctions which now exist in their emoluments should be removed;whether any order has been made or put in force by the Government of India to carry out these injunctions of the Secretary of State and opinions of the Government of India; and, if not, why the recommendations of successive Secretaries of State referred to in the Earl of Kimberley's despatch have not been carried into effect; whether the Government of India will now take steps to equalize the furlough allowances of civil engineers in the Indian Public Works Department with those of military officers in that Department, and, as far as practicable, to equalize their pension advantages; and, on what grounds action in the matter can be further postponed?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST) (Chatham)The proposal of the Earl of Kimberley, a 1883, was to equalize the pay of civil and military engineers, by discontinuing the military pay proper of the 1745 latter. It was not carried out because the Government of India, by subsequent representations, convinced the Secretary of State that it was inexpedient. As the circumstances of the two Services are essentially dissimilar, the Secretary of State sees no occasion for equalizing the conditions of furlough and pension.