§ SIR JAMES ELPHINSTONEasked the Secretary of State for India, in reference to Clause 4, Regulations of the Forces Act, 1871, and to his reply to Colonel Sykes on the 13th of February, If he will state to the House the reason why Her Majesty's Government still withholds from Officers of the late Indian Army
Compensation in retirement equal to the sum they would have received according to the custom of their Regiments, from the junior Officers of those Regiments had they retired therefrom prior to the day the Act comes or came into force?
MR. GRANT DUFFThe claims, Sir, of the officers of the late Indian Army to bonus compensation were disposed of by a despatch of Lord Cranborne's, dated August 8, 1866, embodying and carrying into effect the concessions made by him as Secretary of State in Council, which concessions had been, immediately before the despatch was laid on the Table, announced by him in this House and extremely well received. That despatch of Lord Cranborne's was followed by more than one despatch from the next Secretary of State in Council, the right hon. Gentle- 243 man the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), explaining portions of it to the Government of India, and ruling certain disputed points in the interest of the officers. Her Majesty's present advisers, in dealing with the bonus question, have followed in every particular the same course as their predecessors, and they see no reason why a settlement made by their predecessors so long ago should be now disturbed, because under different circumstances a different arrangement was made last year with the officers of a different Army.