COLONEL SYKESsaid, he wished to ask the Paymaster General, By what legal authority the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital suspended the pension of Colour Sergeant T. Connell, late of the 78th Highlanders, to the amount of £9, for alleged insubordination as a clerk in the office of the Adjutant of a Militia Artillery Regiment, he having completed, with 468 an unsullied character, his contract of twenty-one years' service with the State, and having thus acquired by right the enjoyment of his pension for the rest of his days?
§ MR. STEPHEN CAVEsaid, the circumstances under which Thomas Connell's pension was suspended were these:—He was sentenced by a regimental court martial on the 28th of June last year to reduction to the ranks, and ten days' imprisonment in Forfar Gaol "for conduct highly insubordinate, and to the prejudice of good order and military discipline." His commanding officer, Colonel Laird, reported on the 30th of the same month to the Secretary of State for War that, after his sentence had been read, "his conduct was scandalous in the extreme;" that he tried to excite the men to mutiny on parade, fought and struggled with the escort on the road to the station, and harangued the passengers in the train during the journey. Colonel Laird says—
If he be allowed to go unpunished for these crimes in addition to that he was convicted of, it is impossible that I can maintain order and discipline in the regiment.This report having been referred by the Secretary of State for War to the Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital, they decided that the suspension of Connell's pension for three months was the lightest punishment they could inflict, after giving every consideration to his previous long service and good conduct. The legal authority under which the Commissioners acted in such matters was the Act 7 Geo. IV. c. 16, s. 13, which enacted—That it should be lawful for the Commissioners, and they are thereby authorized and empowered, upon complaint and proof to their satisfaction being made to them of any fraud….. or of other misconduct attempted or practised by any person being a pensioner, to suspend or take away the pension.This Act was confirmed by the Act 9 & 10 Vict. c. 10. The last part of the question was somewhat ambiguous. If by "right" the hon. and gallant Member meant legal right, he had shown that the law under which the pensions were granted provided for their contingent suspension and forfeiture. If the hon. and gallant Member meant that in his opinion the law ought not to contain such a provision, it was obvious that he had entered upon a field of argument far beyond the limits of a simple question and answer.