§ MR. KENNYasked the Secretary of State for War, If it is a fact that Charles M'Fadden, late private of the 57th Foot, regimental No. 2076, an out-pensioner of Her Majesty's Royal Hospital at Chelsea, having the Crimean medal and clasps for Inkerman and Sebastopol, the Turkish medal, the New Zealand medal, and long service and good medal, as well as four good conduct badges and a certificate for "very good conduct," and who is now in the fifty-sixth year of his ago, has been refused two years' arrears of pension, amounting to £40 4s., on the ground that he was resident in a foreign country during the accumulation of the arrears, viz., from October 1880 till December 1882; whether M'Fadden is entitled to reckon his service as twenty-one years and nineteen days towards pay and pension, twelve years and five months of which time he served abroad; if, as M'Fadden was over fifty years of ago when he went to a foreign country for the two years mentioned, he was not liable by Statute to have been called out for service at home in the event of a national emergency; and, whether, under all these circumstances, he will be now permitted to receive his arrears of pension, he being at the present time threatened with the loss of the sight of both eyes?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONSir, a Regulation has recently been made allowing pensioners over 50 years of age to reside out of the country; and I propose to apply this Regulation to the case of M'Fadden, who will, therefore, receive the arrears.