§ Mr. CROOKSasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether the bonus to be paid to officers in the Army of Occupation will be on their substantive rank to which they reverted on the 1st May, or on the acting or higher rank held on the 30th April; and if he will state whether this bonus is only to be paid as from the 1st May, except where specially recommended by the commanding officer, in view of the fact that it was clearly laid down that it was to be paid to all officers, as from the 1st February, who were in the Service on the 1st May?
§ Mr. FORSTERThe bonus, when dependent on rank, will be based on the rank for which pay is being drawn and will change when the rank changes. It has never been laid down that all officers who were still in the Service on the 1st May would draw it from the 1st February, 1919. Payment from the 1st February, 1919, is confined to those who are retained for the Armies of Occupation and for the machinery of demobilisation. Those who are to be demobilised but have not actually been released by the 1st May draw the bonus from that date.