§ 3. Colonel YATEasked the Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that the decision of the Secretary of State in Council of the 16th October, 1918, permitting officers on the unemployed list of the Indian Army who have reached the ages of fifty-five and fifty-seven and are working under the War Office to be placed on the retired list is of no benefit to those officers unless they carry retrospective effect, he will issue orders that these officers are to be allowed to retire on pension with effect from the dates on which they reached, respectively, the ages of fifty-five and fifty-seven or became entitled to their thirty-eight years' pension?
§ Mr. MONTAGUI do not admit that the officers in question will derive no benefit from the permission now given to them to retire, unless the permission is made retrospective. I would remind the hon. and gallant Member that the Government have an unquestioned right to suspend retirement when and for such time as it thinks fit, and that what may be permitted now might not have been prudent a short time ago. As at present advised I am not disposed to give the Order retrospective effect.