COLONEL LINDSAYsaid, he wished to call the attention of the House to the deduction of pay from officers serving on the staff when they were temporarily absent from their staff duties. In reply to a question put by him on a former occasion, the hon. Under Secretary for War stated that the general rule of the service disentitled that class of officers to receive staff pay while not actually performing staff duty. On that point he took issue with the hon. Under Secretary, and maintained that the practice had not been such as he had represented it. He conceived that the rule adopted on the subject in 1848 was intended to meet the cases of officers holding two staff appointments, or of officers upon full pay holding staff appointments, and that it was not meant that the staff pay of half-pay officers holding staff appointments should be deducted when they were temporarily absent from their duties. He wished to know whether it was the intention of the War Department to deduct the staff pay of officers who were absent for a short time on leave?
§ MR. FREDERICK PEELsaid, that in the case of staff officers employed abroad the staff pay was not issuable when the officers were absent from the particular sphere of their duties. But with regard to officers at home, the practice, he believed, was to allow the staff pay to those who were only away for a short period, and whose duties could be discharged in their absence without any additional expense to the public; and by that practice the authorities at the War Office proposed to abide.