CO885-(16-18) — Page 646

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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Reference :-

C.O.885

18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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10. As Governors are only appointed for six years and the shortest period qualifying for the lowest rate of Governors' pension (see paragraph 5 of this Memorandum) is eight years, no person can get a Governor's pension unless he has held at least two Governments; and no one, except one who has been a Civil Servant, can get the full rate of Governor's pension unless he has held at least three Governments.

11. The system of appointing Governors for six years and the scheme of the Governors' Pensions Acts are, in fact, inconsistent with one another, for the Acts are apparently based upon the assumption that Governors will hold a series of Governments. But the principle of appoint- ing Governors for a limited period was recognised in the Superannuation Act, 1859," whieli regu- lates the grant of pensions to Civil Servants. "In section 12 of that Act it is enacted that every officer "transferred from employment entitling him to superannuation allowance to public em- ployment under the Crown not so entitling him shall be entitled on his ultimate retirement from the public service to the same allowance as if he had continued to hold the vacated appointment and at the same rate of salary as when the same was vacated," with a proviso that “it shall be lawful for the Commissioners of the Treasury, in the case of officers transferred to Governorships and Lieutenant-Governorships of Colonies, and other high offices abroad conferred for a limited period, to grant such superannuation allowance to such officers on the expiration of such term of service without a renewal of public employment."

12. It has been suggested that the section in question refers only to officers transferred to employment under the Crown not entitling them to pensim, and that, as Governors and Lieutenant- Governors have since this Act of 1859 was passed become entitled to pension under the Governors' Pensions Act of 1865, the proviso no longer applies to them and, consequently, that they cannot be granted any pension from Imperial funds unless they are of 60 years of age or incapable; but in at least one (Sir G. Carter's) the Treasury have sanctioned the grant of a pension on the hypothesis that it still applies to them.

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13. When the draft of the Act of 1865 was under discussion Sir Frederic Rogers observed that perhaps the main argument in favour of pensions is that they induce valuable men to enter the service and help the Government to get rid of indifferent officers. It is because the Governors' Pensions Acts do not offer sufficient inducement to valuable men, and tend to prevent the Government from getting rid of indifferent officers, that it is now desired to amend them.

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14. On the one hand it is alleged that capable men are deterred from offering themselves for Governorships owing to the uncertainty as to their pension that, unless a man either has ample private means or is so badly off that he is bound to take anything that he can get, he will not usually, if a prudent man, accept a Governor- ship and run the risk of being left without either pension or employment when his term of office comes to an end.

15. On the other hand, when a man has once become a Governor, the effect of the Governors' Pensions Acts is to make it very difficult not to promote him from one Governorship to another. Excluding the military Governments of Gibraltar, Malta, and Bermuda, and including the High Commissionership of Cyprus, there are only 36 Governments, and there are very great lif ferences in the value of these appointments, and

in the qualifications which should be possessed by those who hold them. The salaries vary from £800 a year in St. Helena to £10,000 in Canada and Australia, and the men who can be got to fill the minor Governments are usually not of the class required for the higher ones, while those who do best in a Crown Colony are seldom qualified to discharge the duties of Governor in a Colony possessing responsible government. But, as Governors are appointed only for six years, and (except under section 12 of the Act of 1859) are not qualified for pension at the end of the six years, the Secretary of State is constantly being called upon to decide whether he shall leave a Governor without either employment or pension, or shall select him to fill a Government for which he is either not well qualified, or at any rate not the best qualified man available. Thus there is

a tendency to fill the higher ranks of Governors with men who, although they have discharged their duties in a minor Government satisfactorily, would not have been promoted if it had been possible to pension them; and the difficulty is aggravated by the fact that, owing to there being a great want of graduation in the classification adopted in the Governors' Pensions Acts, both as regards the salaries on which it is based and

as regards the pensions for which it provides, the amount of pension is largely increased by holding a Government of a higher class for a comparatively short time.

16. The difficulty was foreseen by Sir Henry Taylor, who in his Autobiography (Vol. II., page 212) says that h. had taken an active part in advocating the Cole al Governors' Pension Act of 1865, and that the measure devised in the Colonial Office had been in his opinion a good one but had lost its character on its way through the Treasury. He had written about

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• I can find nothing in the records to justify this remark about the Treasury. The Colonial Office seems to have been responsible for the measure as enacted.— R.L.A.

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