§ MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, Why any Officer of the late Indian Army, now, doing duty at the depôt at Canterbury, should not receive the pay due to his rank; and whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to make up to the Widows and Orphans of the Indian Service the loss they have sustained by the late decision respecting Lord Clive's Bounty? These Officers had been doing duty, he believed, at the recruiting depôt at Canterbury, and had received no pay whatever since the 1st of June last. On the 13th of May the army agents of one of these Officers received a letter from the Secretary of War's Office, stating that before replying it was necessary to communicate with the Under Secretary of State for India; but that an answer would be sent as soon as a reply to that communication was received. Upon another application being made, it was stated that no reply from the Under Secretary of State for India had been received, and the agents deemed it useless to make any further application. There was one case which he knew—["Order!"]—He considered, it necessary to explain the case, in order to make the Question intelligible. ["Order!"]
§ SIR CHARLES WOOD, in reply, said, he could not complain of the hon. Gentleman attempting some explanation of the Question on the Paper, because he could not learn, as far as the War Office and the India Office were concerned, that there was any Officer doing duty at Canterbury who was not receiving the pay due to his rank. He apprehended that his hon. Friend was mistaken as to the facts. What his hon. Friend probably referred to was the case of some Officers whose furlough had expired, and who had not been put on active duty in England. Indian Officers, on coming home, were allowed to remain on furlough, receiving certain pay for two years and a half. If they overstayed their furlough, they received no pay. They were no longer entitled to pay under the Indian regulations, and they were not entitled to pay until they commenced 177 doing duty under the War Office regulations. If this was not the case to which his hon. Friend referred, he could not guess what it was. But for the pay of officers serving at the depôts of the new regiments the War Office, and not the India Office, was responsible. With regard to the second Question of his hon. Friend, the decision of the House of Lords was only given two or three days ago, and a point was to be referred for the opinion of the Judges. The amount paid to widows and orphans of the Indian. Service was twenty or thirty times as much as was received from the Clive Fund.
§ MR. MONCKTON MILNESsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman had not answered his Question, which was, whether any Officer or Officers have been doing duty at Canterbury without receiving any pay?
§ SIR CHARLES WOODsaid, that so far as he could learn from the War Office—for it had nothing to do with his own Department—no such state of things as that to which the hon. Gentleman referred existed, and no Officer was doing duty at Canterbury who was not in the receipt of full pay.