PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
THI
Reference :-
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
C.O. 885 / 5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
Money value of Naval or
Military employment, mode of calculating.
Hansard,
Col. 898, Vol. 39, Bu series.
8
That Committee started with the assumption that half pay was simply a retaining fee pending re-employment, and that if the officer were employed by Government in whatsoever capacity it could not be necessary to continue the half pay, because such employment was itself an adequate retaining fee.
This view of half pay was fairly accurate before the end of the great war, but not afterwards. It is expressed in the following extract from an Admiralty Order in Council of 8th March 1737 :—
"We are humbly of opinion that the chief end of allowing half pay is to retain and subsist commission officers while unemployed, until the Crown may have occasion for their servico, which may be taken from them upon their refusing to serve, or on other reasonable cause."
After the Pence of 1815 hundreds of officers were placed on half pay without the remotest prospect of future employment in the Army or Navy. They had to choose between living idly on their half pay or seeking civil employment, and the question arose whether it would not be economical to encourage their employment in the Civil Service of Government by allowing them to draw their naval or military non-effective pay in addition to their civil salary, within certain restrictions. This question was twice answered by Parliament in the affirmative, once before and once after an honest attempt to enforce the recommendation of the Committee, and it can hardly be doubted that the answer was right.
II. Another conclusion is that Parliament has not considered that the principle laid down by section 22 of 4 & 5 Will. 4. c. 21, viz., that the receipt of salary and non effective pay, combined, by a re-employed pensioner ought not to exceed the emoluments of his former office, is applicable to a half-pay officer in civil employment with so much stringency as to a re-employed civilian pensioner.
The reasons for this distinction in favour of half-pay naval and military officers are probably the following. When such an officer takes civil employ- ment under Government he does not return to the line of duty which he left when he was placed on half pay. He takes up a work to which he is in no way committed by his past service, and which he might decline, whilst a civilian pensioner, if not disqualified by age or ill-health, is in strictness bound to return to civil duty whenever an opportunity offers. Again, half- pay officers were, as a rule, younger, robuster, and abler men than the common run of civilian pensioners, who, if they had not retired on account of ill-health or age, had probably been shouldered out of office, for the good of the service, under schemes of re-organization. Moreover, the peculiarity of naval and military employment is that its actual remuneration in pay is generally very small compared with the salary of a civilian of the same social station. The inducements to enter the Army or Navy are not so much the pay and allowances as the honour attaching to officer's rank, the chances of brilliant distinction, the variety and adventure of the service (including prize money in former days), the uniform, decorations, and other attractions which are absent from civil service. If the value of a half-pay officer's former
employment is to be assessed in money, count must be taken of all the above incidents of the naval or military profession, as well as of his actual full pay and allowances in money or kind.
Accordingly, we find that on 5th March 1819 Lord Palmerston gave the following answer to a question by Mr. Lyttelton as to the oath, to be taken by half-pay officers :-
"It had been thought expedient so far to relax the rule referred to, that whereas by the present regulation no officer could receive his half pay without making an affidavit that he held no other place of emolument, civil or military, under His Majesty, it had been resolved to substitute an outh that he held no office, civil or military, under the Crown, exceeding three times the amount of his half pay, which was computed to be equal to about twice the amount of his full pay; and con- sidering that the greater number of officers, particularly inferior ones, had little chance of future employment, he hoped the House would not look upon the amended regulation as too liberal."
The above is the first mention of the "three times'
proportion at which deduction from half pay was to begin, the whole being withdrawn when the civil emoluments equalled "four times" the half pay.
"1
If, however, the principle of section 22 of 4 and 5 Will. 4. c. 24 is ignored altogether, it is difficult to justify any abatement of half
pay. We must
conclude, therefore, that l'arliament has held that four times half pay, in a civil employment, is about the money equivalent of the active military employment which the officer has forsaken.
half
9
II.
REASONS FOR NEW REGULATIONS.
ARMT.
It will have been observed in the retrospect that the Regulation laid down by section 6 (4) of the Appropriation Act, 1870, regarding the receipt of army pay with civil salary, has been rendered nugatory, so far as regards appointments after 30th June 1881, by Article 967 of the Army Pay Warrant. absolutely forbidding such receipt.
can
character of Army Half pay If a
The explanation of this is that army half pay has now returned to what it lange un used to be before the Peace of 1815. It is simply a retaining fee. It never be held for more than five years at a time, and ought very seldom to last so long. The statutory regulation, therefore, is now obsolete. military officer on the active list takes civil employment, he is seconded; that is to say, all his military emoluments are temporarily suspended.
The permanent half pay that prevailed from 1815 to 1877 has now been superseded by retired pay, the receipt of which, with civil salary, is governed by Articles 990 and 991 of the Army Pay Warrant. Retired pay is only Character given to an officer who leaves the army for good; his liability to recall, in of Army case of national emergency, up to a certain age, under Article 114, being too Retired Pa remote for calculation. It combines the character, for the present, of com-
pensation for past services, and compensation for loss of employment, because so many retirements are now compulsory. In time, however, if the system now established works successfully, it is hoped that the ordinary run of retirements will be voluntary, and retired pay may then be regarded as purely compensation for past services.
But retired pay is granted at higher rates than half pay, as the following Table shows :---
44
Maximum
Infantry Officers.
Half pay.
Minimum and Maximum Retired Pay.
£
£
500
600 to 700
201
250 to 365
174
150 to 300
128
150 to 200
82
Major-General
Lieutenant-Colonel
Major.
Captain
-
Lieutenant
It is unnecessary to quote other examples.
When, therefore, Article 990 of the Pay Warrant applied to the receipt of retired pay, with civil salary, "limitations corresponding to those in the Appropriation Act, 1870," regarding half pay, it gave a much greater boon to army officers than had been conferred by that Act. It must, however, be borne in mind that, up to the year 1877, the War Office applied the Appropriation Act rules to retired full pay, and, in calculating the three times limit, were guided by the actual non-effective pay awarded for the officer's past services, not by the highest rate of half pay attached to the rank.
At the same time, if four times an officer's half pay be the money equi- valent of his active military employment, it necessarily follows that some less multiple of his retired pay must be a similar equivalent.
Moreover, retired pay is given in the form of a gratuity ranging from 1,200l. to 2,000l., not of an annuity, whenever a lieutenant, captain, or major retires voluntarily after less than twenty years' service.
The Treasury, therefore, has frequently contended that some special rules ought to be framed for officers who enter civil employment while in receipt of high rates of Army retired pay,
Articles I
and 972.
Another difficulty has arisen in regard to retired officers entering the Colonial service of a Colonial Government. In former days service in the Colonies put. did not mean that the employed officer drew his effective pay from other than imperial funds. But now various Colonies employ military officers for military or civil duties, and pay them from purely colonial funds. The view to which the Treasury has inclined is that such a Colony ought to pay the re-employed officer sufficiently well to make it worth his while to give up
i 15866.
B