PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
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TIC.O. 885/5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON
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But these plain and reasonable distinctions are swept away by the interpretation of a Royal Warrant.
It has been stated that the interests entrusted to the Home Government require the enforcement of the restrictive regulations to which exception is taken, on the following grounds, viz. :—
Officers on full active pay might equitably claim to be placed on the footing occupied by officers in Colonial employment, and would ask for retired allowance immediately they became eligible for it, and at the same time claim to continue on full
pay.
But the question of officers receiving full pay and retired pay concurrently from British funds has not been raised in these remarks, and it is not clear what the Home interests involved
may be.
If a retired Imperial Officer is offered remuneration for services out of autonomous Colonial funds the payment has nothing to do with funds provided by the British taxpayer. Nor could an officer on the limperial retired list think of claiming concurrent active pay merely on the ground that another Retired Officer was serving a Colony and being remunerated for that service by the Colony.
But that the Retired Officer in Colonial employment should expect to receive from the Colony remuneration for his services, over and above the retired pay his past services had earned from the British revenue, is only natural and just.
If it be true, as is undoubtedly the case, that there are public posts in the Colonies to which retired Imperial officers might aspire with advantage not only to themselves and their immediate employers, but also to the interests of the Empire at large, it follows that any hindrances placed in the way of their accepting such posts must be injurious to the interests concerned.
That the restrictions should be imposed at all under these circumstances is not a little striking, but that they should be imposed when abstention from enforcing them involves no increase of Imperial expenditure, is apparently incomprehensible. For, so far as the restrictions are capable of effect, they condemn Retired Officers to a useless life of idleness, and this in the presence of available opportunities of employment offered by the Colonies. It cannot be unreasonable to hope that the restrictions may be removed, and that in such a matter as this is, entailing no extra charge upon Imperial revenues, the action of Her Majesty's Government may be regulated by the requirements of the Colonies.
I beg that you will be so good as to move the Secretary of State for the Colonies to bring the matter under the notice of the proper authorities.
I have, &c.,
The Under Secretary of State for the Colonies.
(Signed) CHARLES TUPPER,
Enclosure in No. 1.
REMARKS On the IMPERIAL REGULATIONS with reference to the employment of Retired MILITARY OFFICERS by COLONIAL GOVERNMENTS.
1. It is held by the Imperial Military Finance Department to be a general rule that officers who have retired from the Queen's Army shall be deprived of retired pay during employment by Governments of British Colonies, whether these Colonies be Crown Colonies or purely autonomous.
2. The rule is founded upon what is believed to be a strained interpretation of Articles 990 and 991 of the Royal Warrant, 1884,*-Pay and Non-effective pay.
3. It is not prescribed by any Act of the British Legislature.
4. There are only three considerations upon one or more of which the rule may be conceived to be possibly grounded, and these are :-
are
The interests of the mother country alone;
The interests of the empire at large; and
The interests of the officers concerned.
5. The only interests, relevant to the subject, that affect the mother country directly,
Financial
economy; and
That the services of certain Retired Officers shall be available when required. These officers are liable to be recalled to service in case of national emergency up to ages varying with their rank on retirement.†
• Appendix I.
† Appendix II.
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6. With regard to economy, it is, of course, indisputable that when the retired pay of an officer who has ceased to belong to the Queen's service is wholly or in part with- held, the public purse of the mother country is so much the gainer.
But if the mere fact that a Retired Officer has found remunerative employment not opposed to the interests of his country is to be considered a justification for enriching the public purse at his expense, it is somewhat inconsistent, to say the least of it to limit the occasions of thus procuring public funds to such as affect the Colonies; for, with a few exceptions which do not touch the subject under discussion, the only other circumstances in which the nature of a Retired Officer's employment bars his receipt of retired pay is when, being re-employed under Her Majesty, he draws the pay of the renewed employment.*
7. If there be any force in the application of a principle to the solution of a question, it surely must be deemed to be as justifiable to deprive officers of their retired pay whenever they have other private sources of income at home or in the Colonies, as it is to deprive them of that pay when they accept service under those who are responsible for the government of autonomous British Colonies.
8. If it be contended that it is not for the purpose of making a cash saving the mother country places her Retired Officers under penalty on their accepting Colonial service, but that the object is to prevent them being beyond reach in the years during which they are liable, in case of national emergency, to be recalled to the Queen's service, it is remarked that the liability to the penalty continues beyond the liability to recall- continues in fact for the lifetime of the officer.
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Retired Lieutenants and Captains are not liable to be recalled to service after they
have attained 45 years of age;
Majors and Lieutenant-Colonels not after 55 years;
Generals not after 67 years;
yet the Retired Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, and General, all alike, are held liable to deprivation of retired pay without regard to their age-it may be long after they have wholly ceased to be connected with the Queen's service-if they accept Colonial service.
There is but one way of escaping from liability to the penalty. A Retired Officer may be permitted to commute his prospect of retired pay, and thenceforward be free and untrammelled. But the commutation is calculated at Government rates considerably lower than the open market rates.
9. It is not then the object of the rule to ensure the services of Retired Officers while they are liable to recall. Its only apparent object from a Home Government point of view is to diminish public expenditure, and this at the cost of Retired Officers and regardless of the wants of the Colonics.
10. How is the case affected by the interests of the Empire at large?
These are merely the interests of the mother country and of her Colonics; and it has been seen that, apart from what concerns the Colonies, the only interest of the mother country in her Retired Officers is the prospect she has of pecuniary benefit to herself.
It remains then to consider whether it be an advantage to the autonomous Colonies that difficulties of a most effective kind should be thrown in the way of Retired Queen's Officers accepting service under them.
11. It is not an easy task to even imagine any possible advantage unless it be that the Colonial Governments are thought to be unfit to exercise uncontrolled the duty of appointing their own officials, and still need nursing by the Departments of the Home Government.
12. It has indeed been said—
"The Imperial Government holds that it does the Colony a greater service by giving it the services of full-pay Officers for a fixed time, and supplying their places from time to time with men who have recent experience of what is taking place in the Regular Army, than by allowing old pensioned Officers' to remain serving on till they arrive at a time of life when they become practically inefficient, and that in the latter case there is considerable danger that in consequence of this having taken root in the Colony there would be a natural indisposition on the part of the Colonial authorities to remove thein.
"An exactly analogous state of things existed in the case of our own Militia adjutants, which has only been recently put an end to, much to the benefit of the service. It is from no motives of economy that we take this view, as it is more costly to keep up a supply of full-pay Officers than to allow pensioned Officers to serve.'
* Appendices I. and III., page 4, Art. 6.
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