§ 10. Major Sir BERTRAM FALLEasked the Secretary to the Admiralty if he is aware that pensioned directors of gun-laying and other gun-layers whose eyesight is affected by lengthened service are now receiving 5s. per week less pay than previously, and less pay than juniors of their own rating; and if it is usual in any service under Government for Government servants, whose services are compulsorily retained, to lose pay because of being obliged to wear glasses?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAI have already explained to my hon. and gallant Friend on the 26th June that men whose qualifications to continue to earn non-substantive pay for specialised work have been impaired by reason of injuries atributable to the Service will receive a disability allowance equivalent to the loss of non-substantive pay which such men would otherwise have drawn. We have been in communication with the Treasury on the question of the extent to which this concession can be applied to those whose qualifications for earning non-substantive pay have been unpaired as the result of disease, in addition to injury. We have not yet reached agreement upon that point. But, in any case, I may as well tell my hon. and gallant Friend that his contention that a man should get this allowance because, for example, his eyesight has deteriorated with increased years and not as the result either of injury or disease attributable to the Service, cannot be supported.
§ Sir B. FALLEIs it usual for those servants who are compulsorily retained to lose pay because their eyesight is affected?
§ Dr. MACNAMARAI am afraid that the fact that a man's sight becomes dim 1331 through years will not qualify him for this disability allowance. I am afraid we are all common victims and sufferers in that respect.