HC Deb 25 February 1864 vol 173 cc1065-6
CAPTAIN JERVIS

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, What steps he intends to take with the view of redressing those grievances of the officers of the Indian Army which have been considered by the "Royal Commission on the Memorials of Indian Officers" to have been caused by a departure from the assurance given by Parliament, in the Acts 21 & 22 Vict. c. 106, and 23 & 24 Vict. c. 100, that the advantages of the late Military forces of the East India Company as to pay, pensions, privileges, and promotion should be preserved to them?

SIR CHARLES WOOD

, in reply, said, the hon. and gallant Member must be aware that this question was at once important and, at the same time, difficult to answer. Two noble Lords, two hon. Members of this House, and three gallant officers had been good enough to undertake the inquiry, and on the part of the Government he took the earliest opportunity of expressing his obligations to them. In their Report thirteen cases of alleged departure from the guarantee were referred to, eight of which, in their opinion, involved no real grievance, while in two other cases the departure was only possible. Of the remainder, there was no difficulty in dealing with, the case of the promotion of General Officers, on the amalgamated list, because the Warrant had not come into actual operation and application, and its withdrawal, therefore, would remedy the grievance. The greatest difficulty presented itself in the supersession of Officers in the regimental cadres by the accelerated promotion of those Officers who had joined the Staff Corps. The simple mode of meeting this case would he at once to cancel the promotion of the Staff Corps Officers; but hon. Gentlemen might well imagine that it was no light matter to cancel the promotions of so many gallant and meritorious Officers, and they would not be surprised to hear that the Government had hesitated to do so. The Members of the India Council, the military authorities, and he himself had been in communication to see if they could devise any measure which would substantially meet the case without inflicting such a hardship as that which would be caused by the measure to which he had alluded. The subject was still under consideration.