CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the Secretary of State for War, If it is a fact that some of the oldest and most experienced officers serving in the Army Pay Department, having some forty years' service or more, and holding the vested interests of purchase combatant commissions, the value of which they have not been allowed like some other paymasters to realise, will be compulsorily retired within the next eighteen months on £400 a-year, losing use and interest of their combatant commission money, whereas other paymasters who have either sold their combatant commissions or hold no vested interests, never having served as combatants, can, after thirty years' service only, retire on £450 and £400 a-year, with higher rank and pension to widow than the former; and, whether it is intended to let these old officers receive their regulation and over-regulation money on retirement, or accord them some increased retirement above other paymasters, in accordance with the precedent established in the grant of retired pay and gratuities to combatant officers, under the Royal Warrant of 21st June 1881, section 2?
§ MR. CHILDERSSir, the Question of the hon. and gallant Member appears to be based on the supposition that the addition of £50 to the retired pay of certain combatant officers is given because of their purchase rights. This is not so; and there is, therefore, no analogy whatever between their case and that of the combatant officers who elected to become paymasters. As a matter of fact, I have improved the scale of pensions which I found in force for the Pay Department; and I see no reason for any further change in the arrangement for their retirement.