§ General Sir IVOR PHILIPPSasked the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that senior officers of the Indian Army, re-employed during the War, who were serving in this country on the outbreak of war on unemployed pay, have been placed in a much less favourable position as regards pay and allowances than officers of the Indian Army who had already retired; whether this differential treatment was on the grounds that officers on the British Army Reserve would consider themselves hardly treated if unemployed officers of the Indian Army were treated in the same mariner as retired officers of the Indian Army; whether, having been treated for purposes of pay as Reserve officers, they were when it came to a question of gratuity not treated as Reserve officers but as Regular serving officers; and, if so, what arrangements he proposes to make to remove the grievances of these re-employed unemployed officers as regards their pay and allowances?
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§ Mr. MONTAGUThe class of officers to whom my hon. and gallant Friend refers are not retired officers, and could not be treated as such. Though permitted to reside unemployed out of India they are liable to be called up for service in India, and when so called up they drop unemployed pay and receive only the Indian pay of their appointments. The question whether they should retain any portion of their Indian unemployed pay if allowed to accept service under the War Office was fully considered at the time, and I am not prepared to reopen the arrangement made by my predecessor in communication with the War Office, under which they were allowed to receive in most cases the larger portion and in no case less than half of their unemployed pay in addition to the British Army pay of their appointments. Their case is not analogous to that of British Army Reserve officers.