HC Deb 11 August 1871 vol 208 cc1432-3
SIR DAVID WEDDERBURN

asked the Under Secretary of State for India, If he would explain the grounds upon which certain payments, such as long service pay, are made by the Indian Government at the rate of 2s. 6d. per rupee, the real value of the rupee not being estimated higher than two shillings, so that officers entitled, after twenty-five years' service to 3s. extra per diem, lose at least one-fifth of that amount?

MR. GRANT DUFF

Sir, the pay per rupee of a British officer serving in India has been ever since the beginning of this century computed at the rate of 2s. 6d., which was the value of the Sicca rupee then current. Though nowadays that sounds an unfair arrangement, it is not really so, because a British officer in every case receives, by the addition of "allowances," at least as much as, if not more than, an Indian officer of the same rank used to receive.