§ 30. Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER - SHEEasked the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Article 497 (a), Royal Warrant, lays down that an officer who retires on retired pay should be entitled to 31 days' pay for every year of service or any part of a year during which his services are utilised on an emergency; whether he is aware that a ruling has been made limiting the completion of the period to the 4th August, 1919, although many officers serving in India were kept on beyond that period; and by whose authority such alteration of the Royal Warrant has been made, by reason of which certain officers are deprived of 31 days' pay, which under the Royal Warrant is undoubtedly due to them?
§ Sir A. WILLIAMSONThis was the decision of His Majesty's Government, taken after full consideration. Under Article 1 of the Royal Warrant for Pay, etc., 1914, no officer has any claim to the benefit of Article 497 "in the event of such provision being at any time added to, varied, or cancelled"; and in this case the provision in question was duly cancelled by a further Royal Warrant.
§ Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEEWill the right hon. Gentleman represent that these alterations in the Royal Warrant should not be made retrospective in future?
§ Sir A. WILLIAMSONI am not quite sure that that is correct. Notice of nearly six months was given before this alteration took place. Most of the officers who re-joined re-joined voluntarily. The soldiers were not released from compulsion, but the officers were in a different position.
§ Colonel ASHLEYWhen the right hon Gentleman states that it was a decision of His Majesty's Government, does that mean a Cabinet decision, an Army Council decision, or the decision most probably of some small clerk in the Finance Department of the War Office?
§ Sir A. WILLIAMSONI am afraid that I may be inaccurate, but I think that it was an Army Council decision.
§ Lieut.-Colonel ARCHER-SHEEWill the right hon. Gentleman represent that this alteration in the Warrant affects officers who are regular serving officers, or the reserve of officers who joined during the War, and are they to understand in future that a Royal Warrant can be altered merely by the ipse dixit of the Secretary of State for War?
§ Sir A. WILLIAMSONI am under the impression that it affects only temporary officers and territorial officers, but not regular officers.