CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether those 1464 Colonels on half-pay, who have completed fifty-eight years of age, and who by his first memorandum he proposed compulsorily to retire on the 1st of July 1881, on a pension of £420 a-year, but whose age for such compulsory retirement has been extended to fifty-nine years of age, by the recent Royal Warrant, may retire from the 1st July 1881, with the compensations offered to the latter when compulsorily retired at the age of fifty-nine; and, whether it is proposed to keep these Colonels on half-pay till they attain the age of fifty-nine, thereby depriving them of about £198 for that year, which sum they could have obtained under the Warrant of 1877 by voluntary retirement; and, moreover, of the following compensation for that year, viz. the equivalent for the net loss by being debarred from age from succeeding to the establishment of General Officers, and the actuarial calculation of value of the chance of a Regiment?
§ MR. CHILDERSSir, in reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I have to say that any colonel entitled under the Warrant of 1878 to retire on his pension of £420 a-year can so retire now. The addition granted by the Warrant of the 25th of June last is only given in cases of compulsory retirement. A colonel now on half-pay must elect between the two courses.