MR. GORSTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, in fulfilment of a promise made by him in the House of Commons on May 7th 1883, a telegram was sent by his authority on May 8th from Scotland Yard to the authorities of the Metropolitan Police at Chatham, in these terms—
Pressing. Please forward to this Office, by morning of 10th. inst. for the information of Sir Edmund Henderson, a report stating the wishes of the men of all ranks employed under C. D. Acts as to remaining in a Dockyard or being transferred to a Town Division; those among them who are of the old Dockyard Force can be pensioned on abolition of office if approved by the Treasury, if they do not wish to enter on duty in the Metropolitan Police;whether several members of the Force on the faith of the above promise of the Commissioner, elected to resign and take their pensions on the scale referred to in the above telegram; whether these persons have not, in every instance, been refused generally, and not on any individual ground, any increase to their ordinary pensions as for abolition of office; and, what steps Her Majesty's Government propose to take in order to fulfil the promise made by Sir Edmund Henderson on their behalf, and on the faith of which those members of the Old Dockyard Force who elected not to enter on duty in the Metropolitan Police have acted?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, he was doing all in his power to settle the question of the pensions of the policemen formerly employed under the Acts referred to in the Question of the hon. and learned Member.