ADJOURNMENT. (Hansard, 25 March 1908)

§ *SIR CHARLES DILKE
said he had never known the Motion made before under these circumstances. It was a private Member's evening, and there was an absolute pledge given in the strongest possible terms that the time of a private Member's evening was never to be interfered with. Was it intended against the private Members opposite to proceed with a Motion of this description.

§ MR. GEORGE WHITELEY
said he understood that the Motion of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was out of order, and the noble Lord the Member for Hornsey, who had also a Motion on the Paper, was ill and could not be in his place. In these circumstances they would have had to have gone on with the private Bills. But that would be unfair, because Tuesday and Wednesday were always understood to be set apart for Motions, and hon. Members interested in the Bills were not present. It would be manifestly unfair to take those Bills in the absence of Members interested.

§ *SIR CHARLES DILKE
said he could only speak again by leave of the House, but he thought the last point was a perfectly good one. If he were in the position of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, he should be inclined to yield to it.

§ VISCOUNT VALENTIA
said he was sorry to stand between the House and the adjournment, but he would really like to get some answer from the Secretary of State for War as to whether he was or was not going to perpetrate a very great injustice by making a reduction in the retired pay of officers who took up work under the County Associations. It was an extremely hard case, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would make an alteration in the existing regulations in order to deal with these officers in a more just way, and so as not to deprive them of their retired pay.

§ MR. HALDANE
said he would reply at once. There was only one possible answer that could be given. By the law of the Army an officer had no right to retired pay till he had served fifteen years, and, if he retired before having completed that service, it was only on certain conditions. If he came into active service in the Militia or Yeomanry, he got a £100 per year, but that was not retired pay.

§ VISCOUNT VALENTIA
said the wording of Paragraph 510 of the Army Pay Orders was certainly "retired pay." It was called retired pay, and he did not think it could be put in any other way.

§ MR. HALDANE
said an officer retiring before the completion of fifteen years' service only got the £100 if he undertook to go on serving in the active list. He was paid the £100 for service in the Militia or Yeomanry. His case was thus differentiated from that of the officer who had retired pay in that sense. An officer on half-pay might be called for active work, and his half-pay was "less than his retired pay. An officer who had retired had no active service, and he was allowed to take up a secretaryship made the Country Association and draw a salary. An officer who was on half-pay might, under certain circumstances, be allowed to fulfil these functions. If the pay was less than retired pay, and he was not paid for active services actually being rendered, he might he allowed to take it. In the case put the officer was receiving £100 a year for active services being rendered, and it was a principle of the Treasury and of the War Office, and he hoped it would remain the principle of the Government, that a man was not paid twice over for rendering duties to the State. For that reason it was impossible, consistently with that principle, to allow those officers to draw their salaries as secretaries to Territorial Associations in addition to the pay which they received for active duties.

§ LORD BALCARRES
said the right hon. Gentleman must forgive him for saying that his defence was wholly technical. What were the facts of the case? His noble friend after prolonged inquiry, and after many candidates had been examined, found that it was only possible for his country to pay £50 a year to the secretary. That particular secretary was enjoying, under Paragraph 510, funds from the War Office to the tune of £100 a year. The War Office had now written to say that because this captain was earning £50 a year from the Oxford County Association and giving his whole time to the service, he was obliged to forfeit the £100 he was earning from the Government. That was to say, the secretary of that County Association was not only giving his whole time to the work, but sacrificing £50 a year into the bargain. The right hon. Gentleman said nothing but work. 1492 on the active list qualified a man for that £100 a year. Let him point out that when this Paragraph 510 was drawn up the conditions of the Territorial Army did not exist. These were new conditions, new responsibilities, new duties, and he had said it was in response to the invitation of such persons as the right hon. Gentleman that men of this calibre had come forward. He gathered that he was wrong in that, but men who had been running these County Associations had been pressed to choose for these responsible places the very best men that could be got. This particular man, who he was assured was a first class man, was not technically speaking on the active list, and would be doing more valuable work as secretary of the Territorial County Association than by that qualification which the right hon. Gentleman said he had forfeited of going out for two or three weeks in the year with a militia regiment. He did not think that on broad grounds the action of the War Office could be defended. It seemed to him to have a flavour of the Treasury about it. The right hon. Gentleman, if he wanted good men, and if he wanted a large choice, must arrange his conditions so that acceptance of this office should not involve a heavy pecuniary fine. This particular individual for aught he knew, might be a millionaire, but he assured the right hon. Gentleman that these small cheese-paring actions on his part were doing far more to injure the future of the Territorial Army than the money which was being poured out and wasted on that force in other directions. They fined this man £50 a year for giving his whole time to the county. A thing like that could not be suppressed. It had got to be known. It was a small and a mean economy on the part of the Treasury. He did not blame the right hon. Gentleman, because he imagined other agencies were at work, but by creating a souse of hardship and injustice the right hon. Gentleman must recognise that he was inflicting a very grave blow upon the efficiency of the force he had brought into being.