§ COLONEL NORTH, in rising to bring under the consideration of the House the present position of the Officers of the Army stationed in Japan as to pay and allowances; and to ask, upon what grounds the Lords of the Treasury have refused to carry out the recommendations of the Secretary for War and of His Royal Highness the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, that the rates allowed for Japan should be assimilated to those granted in China, said, that as the question did not involve either religion or politics, he hoped to receive the support of all parties. The officers originally received the same pay and allowances as those in China, but a short time ago a deduction of 25 per cent was made from the allowances granted to the officers stationed in Japan, on the ground of certain advantages enjoyed by them, which had, however, all disappeared, while the cost of living there remained as high as in China. The first to suffer were the officers of the second battalion of the 9th Regiment, who in October, 1867, in a memorandum which was laid before Major General Guy, and by him transmitted to the Military Secretary of the Horse Guards, represented that the necessary expenses to which officers serving in Japan were subjected far exceeded even those which prevailed in China. Notwithstanding this, they had been subjected to a reduction of one-fourth of the allowances granted in China, so that they had to meet largely increased and increasing expenditure upon reduced allowances. That letter led to a request from the War Office to Major General Brunker, who had succeeded General Guy in command, to obtain trustworthy evidence of the cost of living in China and Japan respectively. Major General Brunker, in a letter dated "Head Quarters, Hong Kong," stated that he had assembled boards of officers in both countries, and that the Hong Kong Board reported that the cost of living at that station had increased from 25 to 30 per cent during the last ten years. The report of the Yokohama Board showed that the salaries of the employés of the banking and mercantile houses varied from £300 to £500 per annum, exclusive of board, lodging, and medical attendance, which income they received also while 900 on leave in England one year in six, their passage money being also paid out and home. On the 17th of June, 1868, Major General Brunker made his report to the Horse Guards. It had been stated that the allowances granted to the officers in Hong Kong and China were necessary, because it was impossible for them to do their duty without the use of "chairs," and that the officers in Japan did not require "chairs," and were, therefore, not put to that expense. The winter, however, at Yokohama was long and very severe, and the price of coal was enormous, amounting sometimes to $22 a ton. The officers at Yokohama were also obliged to pay for the water they used. Upon the arrival home of the 9th Regiment, at the half-yearly inspection, held at Dublin on the 6th of October, 1868, a respectful remonstrance was made to General M'Murdo, who was then the general in command, against the reduction of 25 per cent from the China scale of allowances enforced against the officers while serving in Japan. The officers stated that the Commission at Hong Kong had sent in its report, but that no reply had yet been received to their representations. On the 18th of November, 1868, a letter was received from Secretary Sir John Pakington, stating that he had applied to the Lords of the Treasury for their consent to allow the rates allowed for Japan to be assimilated to those granted in China. He (Colonel North) begged now to refer to a long correspondence which took place some years ago between the War Office under different Secretaries at War and the Treasury on the subject of the great expense incurred by the officers of the Queen's Regiments stationed in China. On the 22nd of March, 1859, General Peel, the then Secretary at War, pressed, in the strongest manner, that the Indian allowances should be granted to officers of the British Army in China, and on the 24th of March that request was granted. On the 12th of April, 1861, Mr. Herbert expressed his opinion that the Indian allowances to those troops should be continued, and on the 7th of May that proposal was approved by the Treasury, who, however, suggested that the Indian troops should be removed from Hong Kong at the earliest opportunity. Sir George Lewis also pressed the Treasury to continue the Indian allowance, but at length the pres- 901 sure from the Treasury was so great that the Indian troops were withdrawn, and with them the Indian allowances were discontinued to the Queen's troops. The result of the removal of the Indian troops from that station had been most disastrous to the European troops, who had then to perform escort and night duties themselves, hundreds of men in each battalion dying or being rendered incapable of performing their duty in consequence. On the 7th of March, 1862, the War Office forwarded the commuted allowance recommended by a Committee, of which the Treasury expressed their approval in April of that year, but was again revised. On the 4th of (September, 1862, Sir George Lewis proposed that the Indian rate then in force should be continued as long as the exceptional high prices of provisions and lodging should continue, and on the 17th of September it was decided that the Indian allowances should be continued to the end of the financial year. In December, 1862, the Secretary for War stated that he was unable to recommend any reduction in the allowances of the British troops serving in China. On the 12th of July, 1863, the Treasury announced that they did not object to continuing those allowances for another year. A number of extracts from letters from Hong Kong and Yokohama showed the inconvenience and expense to which officers and men stationed at the latter place were put. He merely asked that the regiment stationed at Yokohama should receive the same rate of pay as that stationed at Hong Kong. The necessaries of life at the former place were at a most exorbitant price, and the troops stationed there merely asked to be placed on the same footing on which they stood before the 30th of June, 1866, when their pay was equal to that of the troops at Hong Kong, it being at present about one-fourth less.
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, the speech of his hon. and gallant Friend was considerably wider than the terms of the Notice which he had placed upon the Paper, and it was to this only that lie should attempt to offer a reply. The arrangement of which his hon. and gallant Friend complained was entered into between the War Office and the Treasury in the spring of 1866. By that arrangement the allowances on the China station, as fixed in 1865, were raised, 902 and it formed part of the proposals which led to that arrangement that the increased allowance in China could be fairly met by allowing only three-fourths of such increased allowance to the officers stationed in Japan. His hon. and gallant Friend had spoken at considerable length, and with very natural feeling of the sufferings to which British regiments at Hong Kong were exposed by reason of the climate. [Colonel NORTH observed j that it was partly owing to their having to perform the duty which was originally performed for them by the native troops.] But it was precisely because of the dangers arising from the climate in China that the pay and allowances had been fixed at the generous and liberal scale at which they now stood. It was almost entirely because the climate of Japan was temperate, and not specially dangerous to Europeans, that the authorities at the War Office in 1866 believed that the allowance in Japan might be commuted to three-fourths of that in China. His hon. and gallant Friend inquired why the Treasury, in 1868, had refused to sanction the proposal which then came from the War Office to assimilate the allowances in Japan to those which had been sanctioned in China. That decision, which was given by the late, not by the present Treasury Board, was given on the ground that the allowances both in China and Japan had been very recently settled, after considerable interdepartmental discussion and inquiry, both in the War Office and upon the stations, and that no sufficient cause had been shown or assigned in the communications from the War Office for assimilating the allowances in Japan to those sanctioned on the China station. His right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War having enabled him to read, not only the interdepartmental correspondence, but all the minutes of the War Office itself, and the figures bearing upon the question, he thought it only candid and fair to say, as far as his own opinion was concerned, that upon the information communicated to the late Treasury Board, or now in the possession of the Secretary of State for War, no sufficient ground had been shown for assimilating these allowances. Bearing in mind the difference in point of climate between the two stations and all the other circumstances, he was very much disposed to think that if the allow- 903 ances in Japan were raised, the next thing would be a demand for a further increase in China.
COLCONEL NORTHreminded his hon. Friend that when the arrangement was in contemplation, in 1866, a rate of exchange existed in Japan which gave to the officers there an advantage equal to 25 per cent.
MAJOR GENERAL SIB PERCY HERBERTobserved that an injustice done in one part of the globe was not remedied by an injustice done in another. A gross injustice had been done to English officers in China by calling upon them to serve at a lower rate than officers sent from India. The subject of the pay and allowances to troops in China had been considered by the Committee of which he was a member, and of which Lord Salisbury was Chairman, and an Amendment which he (Sir Percy Herbert) moved to the Report, to the effect that the troops employed in China should be placed as nearly as might be upon the same footing as those employed in the East Indies, was only rejected by the casting vote of the Chairman. Under these circumstances, the recommendation now made by his hon. and gallant Friend was, he thought, worthy of attention. It was most undesirable that troops serving upon the same station should be in the receipt of different rates of pay and allowances, and the suggestion that Japan was not more uncomfortable than some of the stations in India was a very poor ground for refusing to do justice to officers on these Japanese stations. He begged to draw the attention of the Secretary of State for War to this fact. The number of troops quartered in Japan was very small, and he believed that discovering the exact time for which this 25 per cent was to be deducted in the case of troops sent from China to Japan, and restored in the case of troops sent from Japan to China, both being portions of the same command, caused as much trouble and clerical work at the War Office as would exhaust a considerable portion of the saving effected by this miserable economy.
COLONEL NORTHgave notice that when the House met again he should take the earliest opportunity of moving an Address to the Crown upon this subject
§ SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEsaid, it would be well if the authorities who had to decide questions of this kind were themselves to visit the colonies. In this case, as he understood, in consequence of a dispute as to pay and allowances, some native Indian troops, who alone could do duty in a state of health in the Chinese climate, had been withdrawn from the station. The duty thus devolved upon the European troops, and entailed upon them such lamentable suffering that in eight and a-half months 193 died or were invalided in one battalion, and in four and a-half months 259 died or were invalided in another. The reason why all these men died or were invalided was simply that the Indian regiments, who could perform sentry and other duties in that climate without risk to health, had been withdrawn to save money to Her Majesty's Treasury. As to Japan, although it had a temperate climate, it must be remembered that there was a very long winter, and the officers were obliged to keep up expensive fires. Coals often cost as much as $22 a ton, and of wood there was almost none; officers, therefore, were obliged to clothe themselves much more warmly than they would otherwise do. The pay which they received was insufficient for these purposes. Besides, the cost of fuel and clothing, house rent, and all the necessaries of life, were extremely dear. The only advantage an officer had in going to Japan was that he went from an exceedingly bad climate to one somewhat better.
§ MR. CARDWELLsaid, he wished to point out the extreme importance in discussions of this kind of confining themselves as much as possible to the point really brought before the House. His hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel North) gave notice of a Motion, the object of which was to call attention to the inequality of the allowances in China and Japan, for the purpose of having them assimilated; but the larger portion of his speech turned upon the inadequacy of the allowances to troops in Hong Kong, as compared with those given in India. The inference which he drew from this was, that in dealing with the pay and allowances at any one station they were only dealing with one portion of a very large and complicated, question, and the moment that the House of Commons decided to grant an increase at 905 any one point they must expect a fresh proposal for increase elsewhere, based upon the success of the previous application. Dr. Murray's report pointed out that Hong Kong was a peculiar station, differing from all other stations, and requiring special allowances and indulgences not needed elsewhere. The moment therefore that an increase was granted at Japan a further application based upon Dr. Murray's report, might be expected from Hong Kong. The matter, however, was never officially dealt with by the present Government at all, but was decided before they came into Office. The Treasury had decided that the Indian allowance should continue so long as the Indian regiments remained; but they insisted that the Indian regiments should be withdrawn as speedily as possible, and they were withdrawn. It was afterwards determined to return a portion of the Indian force to Hong Kong, and an Indian regiment was sent there, but the Indian allowances were not re-established. The scales of allowance were the result of a correspondence that had taken place in I860, between the War Office and the Treasury. In the more recent correspondence which had been laid before the House on the Motion of the Hon. Member for Oxfordshire the War Office proposed to equalize the allowance to Japan with the allowance to China, but the Treasury, for the reasons which had been set forth, declined to do so. The ground on which a larger scale was allowed in Japan was not a difference of prices, but the existence of circumstances which were detailed by Dr. Murray. For instance, in Hong Kong the climate rendered it necessary that coolies should be employed to carry chairs for the use of the officers. The difference of climate caused a different rate of expenditure.
COLONEL NORTHsaid, it was proposed that a corps should be established for the Hong Kong service, the men to be enlisted in the Straits and officered by the Ceylon Rifle Corps.