§ MR. W. KENNY (Dublin, St. Stephen's Green)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if a different principle has been adopted by the Treasury in calculating the pensions of officers in the service of the Scotch Universities and Royal University of Ireland to that pursued in the case of the officers of the Royal College of Science for Ireland; whether pensions on retirement in the former cases have been calculated on both salaries and students' fees, as in the cases of Professors M'Dowall, Read, and King, of Belfast (Queen's College), and of Professor Simpson, of Cork (Queen's College), and of many others; will he explain on what grounds, notwithstanding these precedents, the Treasury has declined to award any pension based upon students' fees to Mr. T. F. Pigot, lately one of the Professors of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, on his retirement through ill-health after 24 years' service, and if he will state in what particulars the case of Professor Pigor differs from those of the gentlemen above mentioned; whether Professor 965 Galloway, of the Royal College of Science for Ireland, was awarded a pension in or about 1883 on both salary and fees, after prolonged correspondence with the Treasury; and if the Treasury will re-consider Professor Pigot's case, with a view to giving him an increase of pension based on a fair average of the emoluments of his office ouside of salary?
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTIn the case of Professors of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland the students' fees are paid into the Exchequer and an equivalent amount is paid from the Vote direct to the Professor. This amount forms part of his pensionable emoluments, and the fact is an element in fixing the salary of the post. The salaries of the staff of the Royal College of Science were fixed with the knowledge that the pupils' fees are paid direct to the Professor, and are, therefore, expressly excluded by the Superannuation Act from the emoluments on which pension may be calculated. The award to Professor Galloway in 1883 was made under a misapprehension, the facts not having been clearly stated in the superannuation form. There was no correspondence as to the inclusion of fees among his pensionable emoluments. The pensions to Scotch Professors are now fixed by the Universities themselves and paid from their annual grant under the Act of 1889. The Treasury has, therefore, now no voice in the matter. These pensions were never granted under the Superannuation Acts, but under the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1858, which did not limit the award to emoluments paid directly from a Vote of Parliament.