§ MR. CAINEI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, whether he will state the grounds upon which the revision of 10th December last of appointments and salaries in the India Office has been made; what the financial effect of this revision will be; and whether, looking to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure, the increase, if any, will partly be borne by the Imperial Treasury.
§ LORD G. HAMILTONThe revision of appointments and salaries was necessitated partly by the increase of work in the India Office, partly by the fact that whenever the conditions of service in the Public Offices generally are improved, similar measures have to be taken at the India Office. The mean increase in expenditure will be £2,886 a year; but in spite of this, and of the constant growth of work, the charge for salaries in the India Office is now about £3,300 a year less, than it was in 1890–1891. It would not be in accordance either with the recommendations of the recent Royal Commission or with the consequent arrangement between the India Office and the Treasury, which was published as a Parliamentary Paper in December, 1900, that any part of the cost of the revision should be borne by the Treasury.