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or taking away from them a claim to an extra 2001. or 3001. a year, without the smallest intention on his part, or on any really substantial ground. Take the cases of the present Special Commissioner for Basutoland and the late Special Commissioner for New Guinea; both were retired pay officers, given appointments under this Department, held by instrument from the Crown and under instructions from the Secretary of State, who fixed the amount of their salary; that salary has been paid, not from Imperial funds, not from the funds of the territories in which they exercised their functions, but practically from funds contributed by other Colonies, over whose finances neither the Treasury nor the Secretary of State exercises control. Under the old rules both these officers were liable to suspension of their retired pay; one loyally accepted that position, the other, there is reason to believe, discreditably evaded it. Under

the new rules, as circumstances for the time stand, neither would be liable to have his retired pay stopped; but he might at any minute have become liable, had the Imperial Government decided to grant assistance to New Guinea or Basutoland in a form, which under Treasury Regulations (adopted for con- venience sake for an entirely different object) would have involved the accounts of the territory coming home for audit; on the other hand if the Colonies of the Cape and Queensland were then to decide to give their assistance to the dependent territories in the form of a direct salary to the Special Com- missioners instead of a general contribution, these officers would at once again be in a position to escape their liability in respect to their retired pay. Or again had cither of them been promoted to the Government of West Australia, they would be sub- jected to an immediate loss of their retired pay to the extent of at least 1801. orth of the salary pro- vided from Imperial funds while if the promotion were to the Government of Natal, there would be no such loss. And yet it is impossible to say that the Colonies of West Australia and Natal stand, as regards financial assistance generally, in any materially different relations to the Imperial Treasury, and their Governors hold identically similar positions towards this Department. This tissue of anomalies results from the proposed abandonment of the old principle.

It is submitted also that if the Act of 1872, which for the first time expressly dealt with the case of Imperial Civil pensioners taking service in India or the Colonies, though it was only declaratory of a practice that had long previously been enforced, be repealed, and Imperial pensioners are henceforth to draw, without regard to whatever employment they may get not actually paid from the same source, the allowances, which have been granted to them either on the hypothesis that they were too ill or too old for further employment, or on abolition of office during non-employment, it will be impossible to retain in force the similar regulations under which Colonial pensioners are now subjected to the old Imperial rules when re-employed either under the Imperial Govern- ment or in any other Colony. The Secretary of

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State is often enabled to save an ill-health pension or an abolition allowance in one small Colony by trausferring to or re-employing the affected officer to the service of another Colony. But the Govern- ments of the West Indian and Mediterranean Colonies are as distinct from those of the West Coast of Africa as the Government of the United Kingdom is from that of any Australian Colony; and the principle of unity of service' once being adandoned, our whole restrictive practice in this respect must go with it.

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is true that in many Colonies, and not Crown ones only, the practice rests on statutory basis, but of course there will be agitation in the face of the Imperial precedent to get such statutory provisions repealed.

It may be useful to inquire how far it is intended to reverse express stipulations as well as the old principle, e.g., Sir J. De Wet and Mr. Hudson both recently were awarded on abolition of office large allowances, partly paid from Cape, and partly from Imperial funds, of course subject to suspension during re-employment, and the Treasury expressed the strongest opinion in both cases that this Depart- ment ought to find re-employment for them, so as to save their compensation allowances.

If the Act 35 Vict. c. 12 is repealed, and the new procedure is logically carried out, Mr. Hudson, if re- employed in any Colony not in the Treasury list, must be allowed to draw his whole Imperial pension. and if he be employed in a Colony in the list he will only be subjected to a deduction of 10 per cent on his new salary without reference to the amount of his new emoluments, at least that is apparently the only meaning that can be attached to the expression in ii. of the Treasury letter of 3rd April 1886, as to the "

proper extension to civilian pensioners, mutatis "mutandis, of the proposed regulations." This instance alone should be sufficient to show the preposterous character of the proposal to repeal that Act.

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It is submitted that this is not the only Act that will have to be repealed if this new procedure is persisted in. Thus in the 7th clause of the Act regulating the pensions of Colonial Governors, the charge falling on Imperial funds is considerably reduced by any earlier or later emolument that the officer may derive "from any public revenue "in respect of any public services performed within "Her Majesty's dominions." If the "obligations of the Imperial Government are not to be "affected by the receipt of emoluments from funds not under Treasury control, then it must be unwarrantable that Sir. P. Wodehouse's Imperial pension should be reduced 2751. a year in respect to his Ceylon pension, and Sir Rawson Rawson's over 400/. a year in respect to his Cape and Mauritius pensions. Or, again, take the Act of 1869, (32 and 33 Vict. cap. 60), regulating the pensions of “ persons having held certain high " civil offices ; under the 6th clause, the pension is to be reduced by "any emolument, including in the "term any salary, compensation, superannuation

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