TERRITORIALS' PAY IN INDIA.

HL Deb 16 June 1915 vol 19 cc63-74

LORD HARRIS rose to ask His Majesty's Government whether they can now specify what improvements in pay and allowances have been granted to Territorial soldiers serving in India and Singapore.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, the subject of my Question has already been before your Lordships on two occasions, and I make no apology for again bringing it forward. The regiments to which it refers have been very unlucky. They accepted, as soldiers should, the duty they were called upon to perform, which, of course, was altogether outside their original contract, of going to India in the place of Regular regiments brought home for the Front. I can say without hesitation that these Territorials went out on the understanding that they were to do their training in that country and were to be brought back to serve at the Front before the end of the year. Instead of that they have been kept out. through the cold weather and now they must stay through the hot, because the trooping season has ended. Therefore they will be kept there for, I suppose, at least a year, though I should hope that before then the understanding—I think I may say it was as much as a promise—will be redeemed and they will be brought back. As regards individuals, there were in these regiments a great many more married men than are borne on the strength of Regular regiments, and there being this understanding, or misunderstanding, as to when they were to come back married officers and non-commissioned officers and married men in the ranks were quite unable to make any arrangements about taking their wives out. They have been at the expense of keeping up two homes, one for themselves out. there and one for their wives at home; and in the ranks, of course, the incubus of the allowance which the married men have had to make out of their pay has been excessively heavy. Consequently from every point of view, both as regiments and as individuals, they have been, as I say, very unlucky.

The noble Marquess the Leader of the House, when the matter was brought to his notice, acknowledged that there was a case for consideration; and on the last occasion when Lord Selborne raised the question the noble Marquess said that something was going to be done which might cost a considerable sum of money to the India. Government. Then I understood that a Return was to be made which would give us some information on that point. The Return [Cd. 7949] was laid on the' Table this morning, but it affords no information as regards any advantages which are being given, or which it is proposed to give, to these regiments. I understood from the noble Marquess's last reply that an allowance was to be made in consideration of the disadvantages under which the Territorial in India is serving which would substantially acid to his daily pay. We have no information as to what that is, and that is the main answer which I am trying to obtain from the India Office.

The Return presented to-day purports to show that the Territorial gets as much pay in India as he does in England, but the fallacy of the comparison is that whereas Ire is extremely well fed in England and has not to supplement his daily ration out of his pay, in India he is very badly fed and is compelled to supplement his ration out of his pay. It is not very easy to understand this Return. For instance, in column (3) of the allowances in India you will find "Messing allowance, 1s. 3¾d." But if you look at the next column you will see that there is a messing deduction of Is. 3¾d. Where the man is better off I cannot see, because exactly the same sum as is given to him is deducted. What it amounts to is that the India Government claim that, after giving the Territorial the allowances which he gets and after the deductions which are made, he receives 6½d. in addition to his net pay. My information is that he only gets 2¾d., but the point is that he has to use. this residue to supplement. his ration. I have had letters from Territorial officers who are serving in India, and one of them—he was in a position to be capable of judging, because he had work of the kind to do when he was in England—calculates that a man gets about 2¾d. with which to supplement his ration, and that a married man, who has to send home about 3s. 6d. a week, has tot got this. Were it not for the generous assistance of the unmarried men the married men would really, he says, not have enough to cat. The expression used—and I am sure your Lordships will feel it to be lamentable that any officer of a British regiment should be able to write such a thing of British soldiers in thee times—is that "The men ale miserably poor." I hope that the noble Lord who is going to reply will be able to reassure your Lordships that something substantial has been done—not is going to be clone, but has been done—to carry out the acknowledgment of the noble Marquess that it was necessary to do something for these regiments.

As regards proficiency pay, the noble Marquess admitted that in that respect the Territorial in India is worse off than the Regular in England. The reason is this. When the Territorials were mobilised the War Office Order laid down certain conditions under which they might draw proficiency pay. The Territorial had to have put in two camps in order to be able to draw proficiency pay. A lot of these men had never been in the Territorial Force before, and could not have attended any camp; therefore they could not draw proficiency pay until they had done the Army qualification. There were other men who, I dare say, would have been able to complete their two camps had it not been for the fact that a great many Territorial regiments were mobilised either when they were in camp or before they could go into camp last year, so that a great many of these men are disqualified from earning proficiency pay, and my information is that they have been refused it. If the reason for refusing them proficiency pay is that they had not put in two camps, then all I can say is that it is extremely niggardly and paltry; for although these men had not put in two camps of a fortnight each in two years—that is to say, one month's training—they had already put in before they went to India three months' training. Again I saw a complaint in one of the Indian papers that although the Territorial has done his musketry he does not draw the allowance which is said to be made to the Regular who has completed his musketry. Another point is that the Territorial is penalised if lie does not show a full soldier's kit at inspections. Yet these men say that in a great many cases they were never issued a full soldier's kit; consequently they have to produce articles in their private possession in order to make up a full kit.

I intimated to the noble Lord that I should ask questions on these points. I therefore hope he will be able to give complete answers. I sincerely trust that we shall hear that the Government of India have recognised the very different conditions of the Territorial officer and man in India from those of the Regular officer and man, and that they have—some time ago, I should hope—made financial arrangements to supplement the pay or allowances of the Territorial in India in such a way as to put an end to such complaints as I have conveyed to your Lordships, particularly the complaint—one that no officer should be able to make of men serving in the British Army—that they are "miserably poor."

LORD ST. AUDRIES

My Lords, I regret to say that I also have received complaints from Territorials in India. There are two Somersetshire battalions serving out there, and from both have come complaints, in letters home to their relations, that they are not sufficiently paid and have to supplement the Government ration out of their rather scanty pay, that they practically have to pay entirely for breakfast and tea., and that there is a compulsory stoppage for cooking dinner. The complaints are, first, of the insufficiency of the food; and, secondly, of the heavy compulsory stoppages.

These Territorial battalions are in a quite different position in many ways from Regular battalions. In the first place, when Regulars go out from home in drafts to battalions in India they go to battalions which probably have been there two, three, or four years, the commanding officers and the quartermasters of which, and all the old soldiers, know the conditions of Indian life and are able to put these young drafts up to all the ways of eking out their allowances, and so on. But these Territorial battalions went out without any previous knowledge of India at all. Their commanding officers and quartermasters knew nothing of the conditions of India, and of what I believe to be the exactions which are occasionally imposed on green commanding officers by native dealers. There is another point of difference between Territorials and Regular soldiers. The great mass of these Territorials who have gone out to India agreed voluntarily to give allowances to their dependants quite apart from the compulsory allowance. I should think that certainly seventy per cent. of them are making these voluntary allowances. Had they not been able to do that, a great many of them would have felt considerable compunction about enlisting. It is very rare in Line regiments for a soldier in India to send home regularly an allowance. He may send home something at Christmas and at other times, but not regularly. A deduction from a Territorial's pay for these allowances, running up to from ls. 9d. to 3s. 6d. a week, is a considerable one from pay of 7s. a week.

Turning to the question of proficiency pay, it does seem to me rather absurd that a man who has done at home two trainings in camp of fifteen days each should get 3d. and a sergeant 6d. a day more than a man who has done six months' training at home and getting on for four months' training in India. A man who has done two 15-day camps at home may be considered in time of peace a proficient soldier. He is certainly more proficient than a man who has not done any camp training. But you cannot compare that man with a Territorial who has done eight months' regular training with all the new tests: Kitchener marches, musketry, and so on. Obviously the latter is much more proficient. The hardship is this, that the great majority of these men enlisted on the outbreak of war and have not had any opportunity of going into camp. There is the still harder case of men who left the Volunteers before the Territorial Army was formed, and who afterwards joined the Territorials. Because they have not done the two 15-day camps these men are not to get proficiency pay. I venture to think that if the Government could see their way to grant proficiency pay in view of the training these Territorials have undergone it would do a great deal to remove the grievance.

I feel a personal interest in these men because I was instrumental, with what little influence I had, in getting scores and scores of them to join the Territorial Force. They were not men who came to the scratch late; they were men who cheerfully enlisted in August, before the Kitchener Army was formed, and who joined for the purpose of going to the Front and fighting. The great majority of them are bitterly disappointed that they have not had the opportunity of going to the Front, and in all their letters home that I have seen they expre3s the hope that they are now, after the training they have had in India, considered efficient to take their place in the fighting line. Having used my influence to get men to join the Territorials I feel bound to stand up and tell your Lordships when I think they have a grievance. It is a grievance which could easily be put right, and I hope the Government will take up the question of proficiency pay as a first step towards remedying what really is a hard case.

THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (LORD ISLINGTON)

lily Lords, I will endeavour to reply to the Question on the Paper and also to the supplementary questions which the noble Lords have put forward. I regret very much that there has been delay in regard to an improvement in the conditions of pay and allowances to the Territorials in India, but the delay, as I think noble Lords will appreciate, has been to a large degree inevitable, owing to the fact that in order to arrive at a settlement of this question so many Departments have had to be consulted and their concurrence obtained. First of all the India Office had to consult the Government of India, who were best qualified on the spot to judge what the difficulties and grievances were, to what extent they were valid ones, and by what means they could be rectified. Next the consent of the War Office had to be obtained, and then that of the Treasury; and when noble Lords consider the high pressure upon all these Departments in these days of war emergency I think they will agree that there is at any rate some excuse for the delay that has occurred.

The pay, allowances, and deductions attached to forces in the Army have always constituted a difficult and complicated subject, and this complication has undoubtedly been accentuated under the novel conditions of sending Territorials to India. I venture to express my wholehearted concurrence, as will I am sure all other noble Lords, in the remarks that fell from Lord Harris and Lord St. Audries in regard to the patriotism of the Territorials in serving in India. They left their civil avocations and took up this distant and protracted Imperial obligation, and in doing so they are discharging patriotic duties just as much as those who are serving at the Front and taking part in the active campaign. And speaking as one who has known the Territorials for many years I entirely concur with the noble Lord who said that there is no body of men in His Majesty's Forces to-day who are more desirous of taking an active part in the fighting line than the Territorial.

My noble friend the Leader of the House, in the discussion which took place last month, admitted, as the noble Lord said, that the Territorials in India were suffering under a legitimate grievance and that the matter deserved full consideration. He undertook, in consultation with the Government of India and the other Departments, to deal with the question and to ensure that the Territorial serving in India should enjoy conditions as far as possible on equal terms with the Territorial serving in this country. He also promised to have prepared a comparative statement showing the pay, allowances, and deductions of the Territorials serving in India and those of Territorials at home. That statement has been to-day laid on the Table of the House and. can be subjected to examination by noble Lords. I will not attempt to go into the details of this statement. Certain criticisms have been made in regard to it. But broadly speaking I would say this, that in regard to pay and deductions the position of the Territorial in India is the dame as the position of the Territorial stationed anywhere else. It is only in regard to ration allowance that there is a marked difference. But I would point out that the disparity shown by the Return in respect of ration allowance is not quite so bad as would appear, because the ration allowance of 12s. 3d. to a Territorial at home as compared with that to a Territorial in India, which amounts in all to 5s., does not show, in effect, the exact respective figures. The arrangement in England, with very few exceptions, is for rations to be given in kind to the Territorials, and though it is impossible to ascertain the exact amount which those rations cost I am informed that by contract it would be considerably under the sum of 12s. 3d., so that, as I have said, the disparity as between 5s. and 12s. 3d. is not really in effect so great.

In. view of the great difficulties and anomalies that would arise from increasing proficiency pay and altering the home service ration to field service ration in India, it has been decided by the Government of India and the other Departments that a daily increased ration allowance should be given to all Territorials in India, this additional allowance to be supplementary to any pay that they at present receive. The amount that it is proposed to give to all Territorials serving in India is as follows:—1st lieutenant, 1s. 4d. a day; 2nd lieutenant, 2s. 8d. a day; rank and file, 3d. a day; and, by the consent of the Treasury, I am pleased to be able to inform noble Lords that this additional allowance is to take effect from the date of landing in India, so that the additional grant will be a substantial sum in the pockets of those men who, as has been described by noble Lords, have suffered hardships.

It has been decided, however, not to touch the proficiency pay. Lord St. Audries suggested that considerable hardship was being experienced under the present conditions. I would point out that before the war no Territorial was eligible for proficiency pay at all; and Territorials are now only eligible for proficiency pay, which I am informed includes their course in musketry, if in other respects they have qualified. Those other respects come under three definite categories. They must either have served for two years as Territorials and attended camp both years for the full space of the fifteen days' training; or they must., in addition to completing one year's Territorial service before mobilisation, have rendered one year's mobilised service; or those who have joined the Territorials since the outbreak of the war must have rendered two years' mobilised service. Therefore a fraction of the old Territorials will be enjoying proficiency pm' to-day, and a considerable number will come in receipt of it in about two or three months time when the first year's mobilisation has expired; therefore to that extent the hardship suggested is at any rate of a diminishing character. The reason, I understand, why the War Office find it difficult in any way to interfere with proficiency pay is this, that it is the same in India as in the case of Territorials in other parts of the Empire, and if you make an exception on behalf of Territorials serving in India you will be immediately setting up a discrimination in favour of one group of Territorials. This would be invidious and cause discontent., and therefore the Government consider, and I hope noble Lords will agree, that on the whole the wisest plan to meet the difficulties and complications of the case is to grant an additional allowance on the lines that I have indicated and dating, as I have said, from the day of disembarkation in India.

have been asked by my noble friend who represents the War Office to reply to the other part of Lord Harris's Question in regard to the Territorials quartered in Singapore. The position at present in -regard to those Territorials is this, that they receive the same treatment as Regular soldiers. In the Straits Settlements the troops, including officers, draw full field service ration—that is the same ration as is enjoyed by Territorials in this country—and the usual Army colonial allowance is given to officers and warrant officers to meet the extra cost of living there as compared with the cost in this country. In order to be quite satisfied that there are no hardships attaching, to the troops in Singapore, a telegram has been sent to the General Officer Commanding asking what their conditions are, whether there are any grievances, and, if so, what proposals should be made. An answer has not yet been received, but directly it arrives the information will be conveyed to the noble Lord. But it would appear, on the face of it, that the Territorial in Singapore and the Straits Settlements, in view of the fact that he is in receipt of field service ration, has not so complete a. complaint to make as undoubtedly the Territorial had in the past in India.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON

My Lords, I am sure the House will have heard with satisfaction the statement which the noble Lord has just made. On the last occasion when this subject was discussed the noble Marquess the Leader of the House, in reply to a question which I put to him, undertook that the case of Territorial medical officers now serving in India should be considered, and I have only risen to express the hope that, although they have not been referred to in the statement to which we have just listened, their case will not be forgotten. We all know the sacrifices which have been made by Territorial officers and who have gone to India, but in some cases the sacrifices made by Territorial medical officers have been infinitely greater. Their case is a particularly hard one, and were sufficient public attention called to it I believe we should have no further halting in the matter. Medical officers who have enlisted since the beginning of the war enjoy a larger pay and bonus, and the medical officers who have been assigned to the new Army also receive higher pay. I do not know whether Lord Islington is in a position to make any statement on this question, but it directly involves the India Office. I have reason to believe that the War Office are favourable to an increased allowance being given to the Territorial medical officer; now serving in India. Perhaps the noble Lord who represents the Treasury, Lord Hylton, will be able to tell us off-hand whether or not the Treasury look favourably upon the War Office representations with regard to these officers. But the point I would urge is that this question has been under consideration now for several months, and, as my noble friend Lord Harris pointed out, the stay of these regiments in India has been infinitely more prolonged than they supposed would be the case when they went out eight or nine months ago. Bis dat qui cito dat really applies in this case. May I ask the noble Lord whether he will try to thread the mazes of the Departments and arrive at a conclusion with regard to these medical officers, and, if possible, announce it to your Lordships at an early date.

LORD ISLINGTON

I will certainly consult my colleagues in the India Office as to whether anything can be done in the direction suggested by the noble Viscount, but I am given to understand that the condition of the Territorial medical officer in India is on all fours with that of the Territorial medical officer serving in other parts of the Empire; so that were any improvement in the condition of the former projected you would immediately conic up against the difficulty to which I alluded just now of discrimination in favour of one group of Territorials. If the noble Viscount could point out specifically in what way the Territorial medical officer in India is suffering from hardships which the Territorial medical officer in England and elsewhere is not suffering from, it would simplify my inquiry in the Office.

VISCOUNT MIDLETON

The Territorial medical officer has had to pay somebody at home to look after his practice while he is in India, and in many cases after making this payment he has absolutely nothing left with which to maintain himself and his family. When the War Office wished to supplement the number of these officers in order to have sufficient for the new Territorial regiments as well as for the new Army, they found they were obliged to offer a higher rate of remuneration. So that tic Territorial medical officer who joined before the war, and had, perhaps, for years past given time and money to training, is in a worse position than the man who came in after the war. Unwittingly considerable hardship has been thrown on these medical officers, and I could send the noble Lord a pile of correspondence which would convince him that the case is one for immediate consideration. I may say that I would be the last person to ask the Government to add to the enormous charges which are now falling on the country except in a case of really proved hardship.

THE EARL or DARTMOUTH

With regard to the point that if certain things were done for the Territorials in India other Territorials would expect the same, may I suggest that, as the Territorials in India are prejudiced by having to satisfy four Departments, any concession to them might be looked upon as a just compensation for the trouble they had had to go through.

LORD HARRIS

It may seem rather audacious on. my part to suggest to the noble Viscount, Lord Midleton, that he is addressing the wrong Department, but I should have thought that the point which he raised was more a War Office than an India Office question; and. possibly the Paymaster-General aright be disposed to take up the matter and look into it and give us a reply- in that style which attracted us so much when he sat on these Benches. The grievance was published in a letter in The Times not very long ago. It is this, that the medical officers who had been serving for years—some of them in the old Volunteers and afterwards in the Territorial Army up to the date of mobilisation —are, according to the letter in The Times, which has never been contradicted. £150 a year worse off than the medical officers who joined the Territorial Army subse- quently. The War Office, I presume, found that they could not get sufficient medical men to officer the new battalions without giving higher pay. The result is that the old Territorial medical officers who for years have been putting in patriotic service are not only:£150 a year worse off now, but I believe will be worse off by a £60 bonus at the end of the war, than the medical officers who recently came in. If that is true, it does seem to me a serious hardship not only on Territorial medical officers in India but on Territorial medical officers serving elsewhere. I thank the noble Lord for his full and. clear reply to my Question. I understand that the increased allowance represents a clear 3d. a day in excess of everything the Territorial now receives, and in excess of proficiency pay if he is earning it.

THE PAYMASTER-GENERAL (LORD NEWTON)

As my noble friend opposite has made a more or less direct appeal to me, I feel constrained to reply that, much to my regret, I find myself unable to supply him with any information on the subject. This question has been brought up quite unexpectedly as far as I am concerned, and I am bound to take refuge in the common expedient of asking noble Lords opposite to be good enough to put a Motion on the Paper.