§ SIR HENRY HAVELOCKasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to the movement of Indian troops to Malta, Whether it is the fact that the Officers Commanding Indian Regiments of Cavalry and Infantry, being entitled to Indian rates of pay wherever they serve, will be receiving at Malta some £1,700 a year each, or rather more than four times the rate of pay drawn by the Lieutenant-Colonels of British Regiments serving side by side with them; whether the number of British Officers of these Indian Regiments, being, on the Indian establishment only seven officers each, had not been increased, as on all previous occasions of their embarking for service out of India, up to from fourteen to sixteen officers each; and whether each of those officers, even the junior wing subaltern, will not receive, on Indian rates, as high 1719 an amount of pay and allowances as the Lieutenant-Colonels Commanding British Regiments in the same garrison?
§ COLONEL STANLEYSir, perhaps I may be allowed to answer the Question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. The officers commanding Cavalry and Infantry Indian regiments at Malta will receive—the former about £1,836 a-year, and the latter £1,716. The pay and allowances of lieutenant-colonels commanding English Infantry regiments are about £564, and that of English Cavalry regiments about £698. The number of English officers in these Indian regiments has been increased, not to the extent which the hon. and gallant Gentleman assumes in his Question, but to the same extent as in the case of the Abyssinian Expedition—namely, one combatant officer and one doctor, making, I think, a total of eight combatant officers and two doctors. Assuming that the junior wing-officer of an Infantry regiment is a subaltern—which, I am bound to say, is not always the case—he would draw £396 a-year, as against £564, which, as I have stated, is the pay of an Infantry colonel of an English regiment.