§ Sir A. HOLBROOKasked the Secretary of State for War if his attention has been drawn to an Order in Council published in the London Gazette, 19th December, 1924, in which the fact is disclosed that pensioner warrant officers and ratings of the Royal Navy and pensioner warrant officers and ranks of the Royal Marines,
2070Wthe difference in cost per head of lighting troops between 1913–44 and 1925–26 for the Army clerical personnel generally, the Pay and Accountants Corps, and the War Office financial staff?
§ Captain KINGThe clerical personnel of the Army is distributed over its several branches, and it is not possible to state its total cost. For the rest, the following are the figures asked for, in so far as they are available, but I must point out that, owing to the different form in which the Estimates were prepared in 1913–14, the figures for that year are in some respects less complete than those for 1925–26:
granted temporary commissions in the Army during the Great War, if demobilised in the rank of second-lieutenant, were to receive retired pay of £200, with an additional £5 for each complete years service in the rank; and, in view of this added concession on the part of the Admiralty and Treasury to seamen and marine pensioners who obtained temporary commissions in the Army during the War, which could not be disclosed to the Barnes Committee in April of last year, will he bear this fact in mind when he takes into consideration the claim of the pensioner warrant officers and ranks of the Army granted temporary commissions during the Great War, many of whom rose to high rank, but are now in receipt of pensions of the non-commissioned rank held when commissioned, the average of which is £75 a year?
§ Sir L. WORTHINGTON-EVANSI am aware of the Admiralty Order in Council to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. Its effect is to enable a very small class of Marine pensioners, who had been granted temporary commissions in the Army, to be awarded the terms that 2071W they would have received had they been commissioned in the Marines, allowing for the fact that the service of a lieutenant in the Marines is regarded as equivalent to that of a captain in the Army, and that the rank of second-lieutenant does not exist in the Marines. The terms embodied in this Order in Council had been approved and applied for at least a year before the promulgation of the Order in Council, and this was known to the Barnes Committee, who referred to the matter in paragraph 23 of their Report, which the Government are proposing to the House to adopt.