11. Major ASTORasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, as a consequence of the conferring of Dominion status upon the Irish Free State, the office of Governor-General of the Irish Free State will carry the same rights in respect of pension from Imperial funds as the posts of Governor-General in other Dominions?
§ The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Ormsby-Gore)Yes, Sir. The conditions under which Imperial pensions may be paid to the Governors-General of Dominions are defined in the Pensions (Governors of Dominions, etc.) Act, 1911; and the effect of the Irish Free State (Adaptation of Enactments) Order in Council, 1923, now on the Table of the House, will be to place the Irish Free State in the same position as Canada, Australia or any other Dominion in respect of that Act. I think it right at the same time to call the attention of the House to the fact 6 that on 28th November last in the course of debate on the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Bill, I stated, in reply to a question of which I had had no notice, that the office of Governor-General would not be pensionable. It now seems clear that there is no ground on which there should be any differentiation in this respect between the Irish Free State and other Dominions.