§ CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has considered the question of the status of officers holding His Majesty's Commission who served in the late Army Pay Department, and are now required to act under the orders of civilian accountants, many years their juniors in age and service; and whether he will consider the possibility of placing military accountants under the orders of senior military accountants exclusively.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) It is a necessary consequence of the decentralisation of Army accounting that the Pay Department and the Accounts Branches of the War Office should be amalgamated into one Department, trained in the whole finance work of the Army, and available for service abroad as well as at home. Paymasters 1122 will, under the new arrangement sometimes serve under civilians and civilians under paymasters. In this, as in all other services, rank cannot depend solely on age and length of service; there will be cases, therefore, in which the Pay Department officer or civilian official in charge is younger or has less service than those serving under him. The interests of the officers of the Pay Department have been fully considered and carefully safeguarded, and upon the whole they distinctly benefit under the new arrangements.