HC Deb 14 July 1885 vol 299 cc758-75

(19.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £230,710, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886, for Superannuation and Retired Allowances to Persons formerly employed in the Public Service, and for Compassionate or other Special Allowances and Gratuities awarded by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

said, he was sorry that the zig-zag manner in which the Government had taken the Votes that evening compelled him to take up the time of the Committee at that late hour by making some observations on this very important Vote. They had had a debate last night upon the question of superannuation and retired pay; and he had now to call the attention of the Committee to the fact that this Vote showed a net increase of £ 13,882 over the amount in the previous year. He intended to move a reduction of the Vote. He entreated hon. Members to consider that this was a Vote which, of all others, was increasing rapidly every year, and that it was one by which they could best bring about a reduction in the expenditure of the country. In dealing with this Vote there were three considerations to be borne in mind—first, the abolition of offices; secondly, the payment of pensions and superannuation allowances; and, thirdly, the question of age at which the members of the Civil Service were permitted to retire upon the whole or nearly the whole amount of their salaries. In the Public Service there were many sinecures and many offices which might be called semi-sinecures: there were abolished offices, in respect of which compensation was paid; and, lastly, there was a provision for retirement of officials from the Civil Service at the age of 60 with nearly the whole of their salaries. Now, he wished especially to call the attention of the Committee to the fact that, in 20 years, the charge for pensions and retired pay in the Civil Service had risen from £300,000 for the year to £500,000. If that rate of increase was continued the country would soon be paying for superannuation and retired pay in the Civil Service £1,000,000 a-year. That was a very serious matter. The increase was due to three causes—first, to abolition of offices without re-employment of their occupants; secondly, to the terms on which public servants were permitted or were forced to retire from their offices; and, thirdly, to the increased longevity, under the better sanitary conditions of the whole country, which prevailed in the Civil Service. He would take as an example the notorious ease of the Bankruptcy Act of 1869. The annual amount of compensation paid in respect of abolished offices in bankruptcy reached in one year the sum of £39,685; and in 10 years—that was to say, from 1872 to 1882–3, the amount paid in respect of bankruptcy alone to retired Civil servants was £329,517. Let them take an individual case of thi3 extravagance. There was one Commissioner of the age of 49, who retired from the Public Service on the full amount of his salary— namely, £2,000 a-year—on account of the abolition of his Office. Take a more humble case. There was a Lord Chancellor's messenger, who had retired on £200 a-year, and who had since 1832 been receiving that provision. This was a form of extravagance against which he desired to protest. It seemed to him that retirement only ought to be allowed conditionally—namely, on the retiring officer joining some other branch of the Public Service. The Earl of Selborne, then Sir Roundell Palmer, when the Bankruptcy Act was under discussion, had said— He protested against the principle of discharging all these officers without exacting from them such services as they still could give."—(3 Hansard, [196] 1906.) And Sir Roundell Palmer went on to say— One way of avoiding a waste of public money in appointing large numbers of officers and then dismissing them with full compensation was by utilizing the officers we had and not discharging them when they were able to perform their duties."—(Ibid. 1908.) Well, he (Mr. Arnold) contended for the establishment of this rule — that when officers were discharged from the Public Service on account of the abolition of their Office they should be as speedily as possible utilized in other Offices. In that way the country would not be burdened by having to pay them a large proportion of their salaries in the form of pensions. And then he thought the Treasury was much too easy in allowing officers to retire from the Public Service with their full salary. He had the case of a gentleman before him who, on grounds of ill-health, retired from the Public Service in 1867 with a pension of £1,261, which he was actually receiving at that moment. Another large cause of increase was what was known to the Treasury as "old age." He would not go back into the past, but would give the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Holland) and the Committee some figures taken from the Estimates of the present 3'ear. There was an official in bankruptcy retired during the present year at the ago of 61, and he was to receive a pension of £357. There was a Keeper of Prints in the British Museum —a light and easy occupation one would think—who was retired from the Public Service at the ago of 64—an age at which it might be supposed a man was most competent to be a Keeper of Prints —with a pension of £500 a-year. Then there was a clerk in the High Court of Justice who had retired during the past 12 months, at the very moderate age of 63, on a pension of £800 a-year. There was the Governor of a prison retired at the age of 60—just the age at which, one would think, a man ought to be appointed Governor of a prison—at a pension of £400 a-year; and, lastly, there was a clerk in the Land Commission, who retired at the age of 60 with a pension of £366 a-year. He was quite aware he might be told that those retirements were due to length of service, and that they were arrangements carried out in accordance with law. He knew that very well. ["Hear, hear!"] The hon. Gentleman the Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert), who was more responsible for the Estimates than anyone else, said "Hear, hear!" but those statements were facts. What he (Mr. Arnold) was suggesting was that the time had arrived, owing to increased longevity and the superior health of the people, when the Government ought to consider this question of retirement at the age of 60. It appeared to him a fair matter for consideration. If the question were fairly considered, he believed it would be found that the age of 60 was not an age at which men ought to be retired on full pay from the Public Service. He thought Parliament might, with due regard to the public interest, raise the age at which men could retire from the Civil Service, at least, from CO to 65. Sir George Lewis, a Predecessor of the Home Secretary, had declared that he had very faint belief indeed in the possibility of a man living to be 100 years old; but now centenarians existed, and there could be no doubt that the duration of life had become much extended. At the age of 60 men were now really in the prime of life for the performance of many important and useful duties. They were reminded by the presence in that House of its most illustrious and distinguished ornament (Mr. Gladstone) that 15 or 16 years older than 60 a man could perform most valuable services to the State. He did not press so much that night the question of age; but he did press on the Committee that this system of retirement was far too laxly administered by the Treasury. For the reasons he had given, and believing, as he did, that the Treasury was not sufficiently strict with regard to the retirement of persons from the Public Service, he thought that those hon. Gentlemen who were disposed to support him in moving a reduction of the Vote by the sum of £10,000 would be doing service to the general interest of the taxpayers and the country. He begged to move that the Vote be reduced by the sum of £10,000.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £220,710, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1886, for Superannuation and Retired Allowances to Persons formerly employed in the Public Service, and for Compassionate or other Special Allowances and Gratuities awarded by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury."—[Mr. Arthur Arnold.)

THE SECERTARY TO THE TREA-SURY (Sir HENRY HOLLAND)

said, the hon. Gentleman who had moved the reduction of the Vote had brought before the attention of the Committee three grounds of complaint against the system of pensions and retiring allowances practised, not by any particular Government, but generally by successive Treasuries and Governments. The hon. Gentleman went back to the bankruptcy cases of 1869, for which, certainly, neither the present nor the late Government were responsible. Those cases had excited a great deal of attention at the time, and, owing to the dissatisfaction then felt, a great and decided change had been made in the method of dealing with the question. He bad not the slightest hesitation in cordially concurring with the observations of the hon. Gentleman that it was most desirable and most necessary, in the interests of the country, to utilize those officials whose offices were abolished, or who were withdrawn for any other cause. The compensation given was liberal in those eases where the services of the retiring officer were not utilized, and it should always be considered whether the services of such a person could not be availed of in some other branch of the Public Service. This had been done in one case with which he was familiar—namely, the case of Public Prosecutor, whose Office was, as the Committee knew, recently abolished. A County Court Judgeship was offered, he believed, to that gentleman; and if he had accepted it his pension would have ceased pro tanto, so long as he held the Judgeship. He (Sir Henry Holland) only mentioned that case to put it against the cases of 1869 referred to by the hon. Member. The hon. Member's second point was that Government officials were forced to retire at the age of 60. The hon. Gentleman had frankly admitted that the present Government were not to blame, and that the late Government were not to blame, so far as this matter of age was concerned, for it was fixed, and Government could not alter it without careful inquiry and, probably, legislation. However, it was decidedly deserving of consideration whether the age should not be raised; but he (Sir Henry Holland) was not prepared to offer an opinion on the subject now. It was rather a curious thing that the hon. Gentleman had gone back for cases upon this point also to the year 1867—

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

I gave the cases from this year's Estimates.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

Yes; the hon. Member gave some cases of 1867, and then two cases of the present year.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

No; I gave five cases of this year.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREA-SURY

One was the case of the Governor of a prison. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is not able to find that.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

Look in the Estimates.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREA-SURY

It is not sufficient to state simply the age at which an official is retired without going into the circumstances of the case. Of course, I am not able to say what were the circumstances of the cases the hon. Member referred to. Was one of them the case of Mr. Hayward?

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

I mentioned no names.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREA-SURY

It was probably to the advantage of the Public Service that the prison Governor the hon. Member refers to should have retired. The hon. Gentleman seems to assume that every man of the age of 60 is in a good state of health.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

The hon. Baronet will excuse me. I said there were two causes of retirement mentioned in the columns of the Return. One is age, and the other ill-health. Wherever ill-health occurs it is always put down in the Return.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

said, he was aware of that. What he was arguing was that it did not follow, because a man was only 60, that he was in a good state of health; and it might be necessary for an official who had reached that age to retire, though he might not be put down as in ill-health, because he might be so much out of sorts as not to be fully up to his work. In such case retirement might be desirable for the efficiency of the Service. He did not suppose that the hon. Member for Salford intended to find fault with the improved sanitary arrangements of the Public Offices, or to the increased longevity in the Public Service, but that he referred to those matters as bearing upon what was in truth the only question to be considered, whether the age of 60 was the proper age for retirement. The question was one, as he had before said, which deserved consideration.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, he must say that he did not think the proposal to reduce this Vote could well be supported on the grounds adduced by the hon. Member for Salford; but the question which was raised was well deserving of consideration, and he wondered it had not been brought forward with a great deal of force any time during the past 15 years. It was hardly, he thought, to be met by the reply that the blame, if any, attaching to the administrators of the Public Service could not be imputed to the present Government or to their Predecessors. It was not a question of what particular Government or Ministry was responsible for the state of things. The question was whether some change could not be made in the system which at present obtained. He himself had been retired on the re-organization of a large Public Department, and he therefore had some acquaintance with the circumstances now brought before the Committee; and he must say that, although he participated in the re-organization with satisfaction to himself, he had felt that what was then done in the matter of re-organization in the War Office was little short of a public scandal. A large number of men in the prime of life were retired, not compulsorily, but at their own option—men who were qualified for a number of years to go on giving effective service. A large charge had been thrown on the Exchequer in consequence of that reorganization, just as there had been in connection with the re-organization of the Admiralty. And in the volumes of the Public Accounts which he had seen published since that time he had not found that the country had been the gainer by the large outlay which had been brought about. With regard to the present system, he was informed that a large number of men were to be compulsorily retired at the age of 60. He fancied the hon. Baronet was mistaken when he said that there was a provision under Statute Law for compulsory retirement from the Public Service at the age of 60. He believed a man would be entitled by the rule to retire on attaining that age; but there was no compulsory retirement under Statute, therefore there was no reason why the Treasury should deprive themselves of the services of efficient public servants simply because their certificates of birth showed that they had reached the age of 60. In the India Office, at the present moment, a considerable number of men were being turned out of the Service because they happened to be 60 years of ago, though they were, for the most part, able to continue in the Service with advantage to the country. The men so forced out of the Service, when capable and willing to remain at their posts, felt it to be a great grievance, and no wonder. A man at the age of 60 very often found his expenses as heavy as they had ever been. Many a man at that age had a family that he still had to provide for in part, and to cut down their salaries by one-third inflicted a very great hardship on them, and implanted in them a strong sense of injustice—a sense of injustice which spread throughout the Service, and the indirect effect of which it was difficult to judge, but which was palpable, and which did damage to the Service generally. Well, the real secret why the Government every now and then felt themselves compelled to enforce this retirement at the age of CO was the want of promotion in the different Departments. Why was there a want of promotion? Why, it was simply because, under the present system, there was no interchangeability between the Departments. If, when it was necessary to re-organize the War Office or the Admiralty, the Treasury were able to transfer those clerks they wanted to get rid of to other Departments, there would have been a considerable saving effected in those Departments; and the Treasury would have obviated the necessity of introducing into other Departments of the Public Service a number of young clerks who, in their turn, became a block, agitated for an increase of pay, and necessitated compulsory retirement in their Departments also. Now, what he would suggest for the consideration of the Government was this—the desirability of introducing as soon as possible some system of interchangeability throughout the Service, so that the very large number of men in the different Departments who were competent to continue their work for years to come would not be thrown out in the flower of their age and deprived of berths they had held for years with satisfaction to all parties, with their incomes curtailed, and necessitating the filling of their places with a number of men who had to be taught their duties. The saving to the State by such an arrangement would be very considerable. What would be thought in the Army if, because there was a block of promotion in a certain regiment, a number of senior officers were pensioned against their will, instead of being transferred to other regiments? Why should not a man who was retired from the India Office or the Customs and Inland Re-venue Department be transferred to the War Office, the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, or to any other Department where there might happen to be a vacancy? Why should they not so maintain Customs and Inland Revenue clerks in the Service, no matter how great a change might be made in the duties they had to perform? It was the greatest affectation to say that because a man had been in the Customs and Inland Revenue Department or in the Post Office for 10 or 12 years he was at all unfitted for the duties if transferred to any of the Secretary of State Offices. But the difficulty the Treasury had to deal with was the passive resistance of what were called the first-class Offices to the introduction of personnel from what were called inferior Departments. This was one of the changes that the Treasury ought to be firm about. They ought to insist on the superior Departments taking clerks in this way where they were wanted, however great might be the objection of the permanent officials. The Secretaries of State did not care about the matter; it was the high permanent officials who objected. If the course he recommended were adopted, he was confident the Government would soon find these lists of pensions melt away; and, besides that, they would find that they had produced contentment in the Public Service, and had avoided that irritation which they experienced whilst things were as they were now, through agitation, brought about now, in the hope that by causing retirements a considerable amount of promotion would be secured for men who otherwise would have to wait for it for a considerable number of years. There was another matter as to this Vote which he would like to ask a question about. Why was it that in some cases the Treasury refused to allow this Vote to be lightened by commutation of pensions? He had lately heard of a case in the Board of Works in Ireland where a man had been compulsorily retired at the age of 42—thrown on the world at that age with a diminished income. He had been anxious to start life anew in some other way; and in order to obtain the capital to enable him to do that he had applied, through the head of the Board of Works, for the consent of the Treasury to the commutation of his pension. That request was summarily, though courteously, refused. Why such an application as that was refused he (Mr. A. O'Connor) did not know. It was the Treasury who had refused the application, the letter in which the refusal was conveyed to him being from the Commutation Board, and stating that the Lords of the Treasury declined the application, and that no steps would, therefore, be taken in the matter. It appeared to him (Mr. A. O'Connor) that that was a most arbitrary and inconsistent manner of dealing with a public servant against whom there was absolutely no complaint, but who, on the contrary, had been recommended very highly by the Department with which he had been connected. Perhaps the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury could enlighten him on this subject.

MR. SEXTON

said, he wished to point out that the Vote contained several items relating to pensions of Irish officials, as would be seen on reference to page 454. Having regard to the pledge given by the Government that no Irish Votes would be taken until Monday next, he hoped the hon. Baronet would either withdraw the Vote, or exclude from it that portion relating to Irish officials.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

said, he should be very sorry to be supposed to have broken faith with the Irish Members; but the understanding had been that Class III. alone would be postponed until Monday. The Votes the hon. Member referred to in Class VI. were not strictly Irish Votes.

MR. SEXTON

said, the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) and he (Mr. Sexton) had understood, by the arrangement entered into, that no Votes affecting Ireland would be taken before Monday next. If the hon. Member insisted on going on with the Irish Votes in this Class he would be obliged to move to report Progress, and prolonged resistance to the Votes in question would be offered by the Irish Members on Report.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

said, the Votes referred to were not mentioned.

MR. SEXTON

said, the only object which his Friends had had in view in eliciting from the Government that the Irish Votes would not be taken before Monday was to make sure that they would not be wanted this week. There was a very limited attendance of Irish Members at the present moment, the reason being that Irish Business was not expected to come on. He wished to know whether the hon. Baronet held himself at liberty to take Votes 5, 6, and 9 of the present Class, every penny of which would go to Ireland? He did not suppose that the hon. Baronet would maintain that in bringing on those Votes he was adhering to the engagement the Government had entered into on this matter.

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

said, he did maintain it without the slightest doubt. The Votes which it was proposed to take on Monday had been specially mentioned, and these were not amongst them.

MR. SEXTON

Then I beg, Sir, to move that you report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.

[The Motion was not proposed from the Chair.]

MR. ILLINQWORTH

said, the Civil servants were becoming a vast army in this country, and it was becoming a question of the very first importance as to whether there was due economy in connection with it. He did not wish to argue the point put before the Committee by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arnold); but he would mention another which was of great importance. The supply of young men fitted for all these offices was largely on the increase in this country, owing to the working of the Elementary Education Act and their endowed schools system. If that were so, there was great pressure on the part of young men growing up in life to obtain public employment, and he did not think it was necessary to give the same remuneration which was given some time ago when education was not so common, and when it was more difficult to fill up these appointments. He agreed that 60 years of age was an unnecessarily low limit to fix upon as the period of retirement. No great commercial establishment in the country could live and keep its head above water if, when one branch of its business became slack and it could not find employment for its servants, it offered them superannuation on such extravagant terms as were offered in the Public Service. Nothing was more common than for a branch of the Civil Service to rearrange its Departments, and draw from one Department its surplus staff, superannuating them, in order that it might develop another. At this time, when economy of all kinds was absolutely necessary—when they had been indulging in such extravagant expenditure on their Military and Naval systems— there should not be such wanton—there should not be such extravagance in dealing with the Civil servants. Though the Secretary to the Treasury might say he did not feel any particular responsibility at that moment, the hon. Gentleman the late Financial Secretary was able to say much the same thing. That was the only opportunity hon. Members and the country had of reviewing and criticizing what was going on in connection with the employment of officials in the Public Offices. That was not the time, he thought, to maintain that the Rules of the Government Departments were like the laws of the Medes and Persians, which did not in any way change. He thought that attention should be called to the matter, not only by speeches, but also by divisions.

MR. TOMLINSON

wished to make an observation as to one item in the Vote. The pensions in the Vote seemed to be limited to the age of 60; but he saw that one had been given in a case where that age had not been reached— where the recipient, in fact, was only 46. That gentleman seemed to have commenced at the age of 21 years, because he claimed 25 years' service. The only explanation in the margin of the Vote was that the payment took place under the 6 & 7 Vict. ss. 42 and 43. That, so far as he could gather, did not offer any real explanation. A further point he would refer to. He had heard that this gentleman was, some time ago, Secretary of Legation at Madrid, and that he was now employed in Brussels. He (Mr. Tomlinson) failed to understand how it was that, if that gentleman had received a further appointment, his name could appear on the list of pensions. He did not know whether any Member of the Government could give him any information on the subject?

MR. HIBBERT

said, he was not able to answer the question of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston except that the pension alluded to was granted under a special Act. That was the reason why it was not in the same category as other pensions. With regard to the case mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor)—the case of a clerk employed in the Irish Board of Works having been refused a commutation of his pension— he believed the reason was this—that the clerk, being so far from the age at which he could retire with a pension, it was thought that it might be possible, if his health allowed, to utilize him in the Public Service.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, that this gentleman was not pensioned on the ground of ill-health. It was in consequence of the re-organization of the Office that this gentleman of 42 years of age was sent out. He had desired to obtain money for the purpose of entering into some other employment, and that was the reason why he had endeavoured to commute his pension.

MR. HIBBERT

said, he should have thought there were strong grounds in such a ease why a pension should be commuted. As to the other remarks of the hon. Gentleman, he had submitted that there should be interchangeability of clerks between the different Departments, and declared that if that were done they would have a more contented Public Service. Well, he pitied the Treasury if interchangeability were ever carried out; and he very much doubted whether they would have as contented a Public Service as they had now, under that system. There might be a deal to be said in favour of interchangeability; he said there was a great deal to be said in favour of it. But there was also a great deal to be said against it. Suppose they changed clerks from the Customs to the War Office and the Colonial Office, they would prevent promotion in the War Office and the Colonial Office, and cause a much larger pension list to be made out in respect of those Departments than there was at present. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Salford (Mr. Arnold), he should like to say a word or two in confirmation of what had fallen from the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury—namely, that the hon. Gentleman's remarks would have been rather more appropriate in connection with what took place 15 or 20 years ago than what was happening at this moment. He (Mr. Hibbert) did not think they were appropriate to the present time. The Treasury were much more careful in making re-organizations, and were much more determined to prevent everything like extravagance, than they were some years ago. He quite agreed that some years ago there were many extravagant schemes carried out, one of which was the re-organization of the War Office, which had been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor). He believed that had been a very extravagant scheme, and had cost a great deal of money. But with regard to the present Vote, he thought that if they were to go closely into the figures they would not find that there had been a very great increase during the past few years. Of course, if they had an increasing Civil Service, they must have increasing superannuation allowances; and he doubted whether, if the present system of pensions were done away with, the country would be able to retain anything like the splendid body of men it had now serving in the Departments of the Public Service. With regard to the age at which retirement should take place, if he had had to fix it he should have thought 65 much more appropriate than 60. He believed the time was coming fast when the people of this country would look closely into this question, and would require considerable alteration in the system. At the present time, he could not allow it to be said that the Treasury were at all lax in the mode of allowing pensions to be given. The four or five cases which had been mentioned by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Arnold) were cases where the persons had had a right to retire, having reached the age of 60.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

said, he had thought it rather unworthy of the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Holland), when he was making his reply, to refer to the question of sanitary conditions as though it were a joke—as though he (Mr. Arnold) had spoken of it jokingly. That was not the tone he had adopted. With regard to the remarks which had fallen from the hon. Gentleman, he might point out that he had received several letters from gentlemen who had been superannuated in the Civil Service, complaining that when they were retired they were not the least useful members of the Service. Then the hon. Gentleman, in defending the Vote, had said that the increase had not been so great of recent years. But during the past 20 years the amount had been steadily increasing at the rate of £10,000 a-year. It had increased £200,000 in 20 years. But a considerable increase —one of the very largest—had taken place during the present year, the extent of it being £13,000. It was maintained that there was no wrong-doing in this matter at the present time. He would take the liberty of saying to the Secretary to the Treasury that the ground on which he (Mr. Arnold) had asked for a reduction of the Vote was not in reference to age. The reason assigned for the reduction was that the Treasury were not sufficiently strict in regard to the matters involved. He should like to ask the late Government whether, when they dealt with the Bankruptcy Act, they had regard to the vast number of Civil servants retired in the case of the former Bankruptcy Act? There was a diplomatic pension in the Vote granted this year by Her Majesty's late Government—a pension of £1,700 a-year—which certainly need not have been granted. That was one of the reasons why he asked the Committee to assent to the reduction of the Vote. He wished only to say to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who "could not find" the Governor to whom he (Mr. Arnold) had referred, that that official might be discovered if the right hon. Gentleman would turn to page 459. He was in the middle of the page—"Age 60. salary £752, retiring pension £400."

MR. SEXTON

said, he had explained to the Committee what was the understanding between the Irish Members and the Government with regard to the postponement of the Irish Votes—what was the only reasonable construction to put upon the agreement. The hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Holland) had now sprung upon them the theory that the pledge the Government had given was only intended to have effect to Irish Votes in one Class. But Irish Votes were just as much Irish Votes in one Class as another. The object of the understanding had been to secure to the Irish Members a period during which they might be absent, and during which they might be assured no public money in which Ireland was specially interested would be voted in the House. The bulk of the Irish Members were absent that night in consequence of the pledge of the right hon. Baronet the Leader of the House (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), and he (Mr. Sexton) should be very much surprised if the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury persisted in his intention to take Irish Votes that night. If he did—if he insisted on imposing his will upon them against their understanding of the pledge which had been given—he (Mr. Sexton) would move to report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—[Mr. Sexton.)

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

said, he regretted that there had been a misunderstanding; but he thought the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sexton) must feel that it was impossible for him (Sir Henry Holland) to go back from what he had stated as his recollection of the arrangement arrived at. He would suggest to the hon. Member that he should allow the present Vote to pass, and then, should there be any case that the Irish Members desired to call attention to, it should be discussed on Report. Of course, after what had passed, he (Sir Henry Holland) would not propose to the Committee to take Vote 5, or 6, or 9, which were purely Irish Votes. If the hon. Gentleman would allow any point affecting Ireland arising on the present Vote to be considered on Report, he would promise, on the part of the Government, that any special case brought under their attention would be inquired into. He would postpone the other Votes.

MR. SEXTON

said, he would withdraw the Motion, at the same time intimating that the next time a pledge was given by the Government to the Irish Members across the floor of the House, he should be very careful about phrases.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, the figures of this Vote showed how absolutely unreasonable it was to fix the age of 60 as the age for compulsory retirement. If the hon. Baronet would would look at page 457, he would see that there were a number of men who were retired at ages very much above the age of 60, and that one of them—an Examiner in the Bankruptcy Division of the High Court of Justice—retired at the age of 78 with only 17 years of service, so that he must actually have been over 60 years of age when he was first appointed. If it was reasonable to appoint men of 60 years of age for their first entry into the Service, surely it could not be reasonable to establish the rule that a man should have the option of a retiring allowance at the age of 60, and that the Treasury should have the power to compel the retirement of any number of men as soon as they reached that age. A large number of men in the Diplomatic Service retired at the ages of 68, 66, 67, 69, 71, 63, 68, 63, and so on through the whole list. It was perfectly clear that the age of 60 was exceeded in an enormous number of cases, without any loss or injury to the Service; and it did appear to him a great injustice to a large number of men to compel them to retire at the age of 60, when so obvious an expedient as transfer from one Department to other branches of the Service was open to the Treasury. The hon. Baronet had not yet answered the question put to him with regard to the refusal of the Treasury to commute the pension of one of the clerks lately connected with the Irish Board of Works. Seeing that the man had never been sent up to the Medical Authorities for examination, but that his application had been summarily refused, he (Mr. A. O'Connor) would ask the hon. Baronet whether he would not reconsider the matter?

THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY

said, the case referred to by the hon. Member who had just resumed his seat had occurred in 1884, and he (Sir Henry Holland) had had no opportunity of making himself familiar with the circumstances. He would, however, inquire into the matter.

Motion made, and Question put, That a sum, not exceeding £220,710, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March lS86,for Superannuation and Retired Allowances to Persons \formerly employed in the Public Service, and for Compassionate or other Special Allowances and Gratuities awarded by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury."—(Mr. Arthur Arnold.)

The Committee divided: — Ayes 21; Noes 92: Majority 71. —(I)iv. List, No. 228.)

MR. SEXTON

asked the hon. Baronet the Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Holland) to be good enough to look into the case of Matthew Anderson, which was to be found under the head of Law Charges. That gentleman had been a Crown Solicitor, but his office had been abolished, and in the Estimates there was a sum of £262 put down to him. Was that to be an annual allowance, or was it a single sum? Under what circumstances was it promised, and had the transaction resulted in an increased burden being put upon the Exchequer?

Original Question put, and agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.

Committee to sit again To-morrow.