§ MR. WAITasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been drawn to the present mode of paying soldiers entitled to pensions at the different military stations on personal appearance before a Staff officer, such practice being not only inconvenient but costly, and in other respects injurious to the recipients; and, whether it would not be possible to remit such amounts as may be due by drafts or orders from head-quarters?
MR. GATHORNE HARDYSir, the present system of payment was designed with a three-fold object—(1) to put a stop to frauds and personations, by which the public had sustained losses to the amount of several thousand pounds per annum; (2) to benefit the pensioners by giving them fixed times and plans of payment, and paying them as near as possible to their places of residence; (3) to organize the military pensioners into local companies available for military service at home, or to assist the civil power, if required. Under the former system, the pensioners were paid by remittances bills, issued to them each quarter, and they received the cash on presenting the bills to the Revenue officers by whom they were respectively payable. This system afforded no 1811 guarantee against personation, and pensions frequently continued to be drawn after the people to whom they were granted were dead. Under the present system, the Staff Officer of Pensioners of each district, who has upon an average 1,000 pensioners under his charge, is required carefully to identify every one who takes up his residence within his district, and is held personally responsible that the pension is paid to the person who is entitled to receive it. The present system has secured the public against frauds, and has given universal satisfaction to the pensioners. The mode of payment suggested in the Question would be merely to revert to a system which has already proved to be a bad one. The regulations dispense with the personal attendance of pensioners in case of sickness, old age, or bodily infirmity; and even in other cases, pensioners can be released from personal attendance more than once in the quarter, at the discretion of the Staff Officer of Pensioners. There is no doubt that evils do attach to the present system, and it may be a question whether post orders could not be used to a greater extent, and some means devised to prevent personation.