§ SIR HENRY HOAREsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Why Inspectors of Taxes, over fifty-five years of age, who retired in March, 1869, had the full increase of ten years added to their actual length of service as the basis of computation for their superannuation pension; and for what reasons in the present year Inspectors of Taxes who have been reduced in consequence of the diminution of the establishment are to have a certain sum deducted from their retiring allowance for every year in excess of the age of fifty-five, and which Order or Regulation was not acted on in the case of those who retired in 1869?
§ MR. STANSFELDsaid, in reply, that the best answer he could give would be to state the regulations under which Inspectors of Taxes and other Government employés were compensated upon the abolition of offices. A certain number of years were added to the actual length of service for the purpose of computing the pensions—for examine, if a man had served 20 years, under ordinary circumstances he would be entitled to have 10 years added, and to have his pension calculated as if he had served 30 years. Such an addition, however, would be unreasonable if it would carry a man beyond the time of life at which he could reasonably have been expected to remain in the service, and in 1864 a Treasury Minute was issued modifying the regulations in this respect. When the additional number of years would carry a man beyond the age of 60 the Treasury exercised a discretion as to the additional number of years they would allow; and, speaking generally, the rule they adopted was not to make an addition which would carry a man beyond the ago of 65. If it happened that in 1869 any Inspector, on the abolition of his office, had been pensioned on a more liberal scale, he presumed that the rule had been overlooked.