§ MR. VANCEsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India when the prize money for Lucknow will be distributed, and if simultaneously to the Officers entitled to it who have remained in India and to those who have returned home with their regiments, or are invalided?
SIR MINTO FARQUHARsaid, that before the right hon. Baronet answered that question he wished to know whether he could state what were the Troops among whom that prize money was be divided.
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, he was not then in a position to answer the question put by the hon. Baronet. In answer to 1494 the hon. Member for Dublin (Mr. Vance); he had to state that the prize money belonged in the first place to the Crown, and it was necessary that the permission of the Crown should be obtained, through the Lords of the Treasury, for its distribution among the Troops. The matter had therefore been referred to them, and it was for the Treasury to give the necessary instructions for the distribution. But the Lords of the Treasury had proposed that a different scale should be adopted from that which usually prevailed, their suggestion being that the scale should be the same as that adopted in the case of the Russian war. The effect of the proposal would be to increase the shares of the private soldiers and to diminish that of the officers of high rank. The authorities at the India Board stated they had no objection whatever to such an arrangement; and that was the state in which the matter stood at the present moment, and he could not precisely say when the distribution would take place.