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allowance, or pension, which is payable out of any monies raised by taxation or out of other public revenue in any part of Her Majesty's dominions," if the same view is to be taken of the Imperial obligation it must be held to be quite unwarrantable that Mr. Childers' pension as a Cabinet Minister should be reduced by the 8007. a year he receives from Victoria.

It is clear, therefore, that persistence in this policy will entail increased charges both on Imperial and Colonial funds, for which it is submitted that, certainly so far as civil pensioners are concerned, no adequate reason is forthcoming. Economy may be more or less dead in the House of Commons; but it is amazing that the Treasury should have agreed

to embark on such a reckless policy, particularly as the abuses of the pension system are the principal butt of most modern reformers.

It remains to be observed that the foregoing remarks do not necessarily affect the new proposals so far as they relate to giving retired military officers more liberal terms. So long as the War Office and Admiralty adhere to the old system of paying men not for what they do, but for what they have done, giving an officer commanding a regiment or a big ship but very moderate remuneration as compared with a civilian of about the same length of service and official standing, but giving him, if he cau only be induced to retire, a relatively speaking excessive rate of non-effective pay, and so long as their establishments are organized on such a basis that they require to get rid by some means or other of a large proportion of their officers in the prime of life, and so long as such officers are under no obliga- tion, like the abolished civil servant, to accept further Government employment, it is obvious that the "deferred "

pay element enters far more into their "retired pay" than into the allowance, whether superannuation or compensation, which the civil ser- vant may be awarded; and so long as remuneration, commonly regarded as "deferred pay," is withheld in any shape, the grievance will remain, and the officers will agitate through the Department newly employing them to get the restrictions removed, What is contended for is that the terms should be simple, uniform, and not rest on arbitrary distinctions as to the source of pay. And so far as this Depart- ment is concerned it will remain to be proved whether the new regulations will on the whole work inore liberally than the old. It is true that retired officers taking employment under the mass of the Colonial Governments, will not in future be subject to any restrictions at all; but under the old regulations naval retired officers have already not been so subject, and military officers never when they have retired with a gratuity, but only when their new civil pay exceeded three times their retired pay, which was not the case in probably every other instance of such employment. On the other hand under the proposed new regulations an officer, who has left the service of the War Office or Admiralty cither with retired pay or a gratuity, accepting employment, either under the Colonies in the

Treasury list (which list does not comprise uli Colonial Governments who have received financial assistance, so much as those who happen to have received it in years past in a particular form), or being appointed to the Government of a Colony paid partly or wholly from Imperial funds, or to such appointments as those held by the Western Pacific Deputy Commissioners, and the Secre tary to the High Commissioner for South Africa, whose salaries are paid from Imperial votes, will be subject to restriction the moment his combined emoluments amount to 400/.; i.e., in the case of all these appoint- ments an officer with retired pay, naval or military, of 150l. will be subjected to abatement of not less than 451, a year if he accept a berth of 450%.; one with 2001. to a loss of 60%. if he accept 600%.; one with 300%. to a loss of 901. if he accept 9007., where- as under the existing regulations neither military nor naval officers are in these cases subject to any such restrictions, and the naval officer to none, whatever the amount of the Colonial pay. If the estimates and accounts of the less rich Colonies were examined it would be found that there are numbers of miscellaneous appointments, police, gaol, harbour- nasters, inspectorships, &c., which are filled by ex- naval and military men, and that in the majority of cases the Colonial emoluments, though exceeding 2501. a year, do not exceed three times the retired pay of the class of officers who in the future will be usually secured to fill them. Some of these Colonies. are already on the Treasury list, others may any year have to be put on it, and it is obvious that by accepting the proposed new regulations the Secretary of State will increase his own difficulties, already great enough, in satisfactorily filling this sort of appointment, and will involve himself in a correspon- dence with the Treasury on the occasion of each such appointment; it may, in fact, be fairly argued that he is asked to sacrifice the administrative interests of the minor Colonies to the supposed advantage of the larger and richer ones.

Finally, it is suggested that, if it is really desired to please all the Colonies equally by encouraging them to employ retired officere, and if the grand principle of unity of service," whatever the source

pay,

of

is to be retained, the only rule that will satisfactorily accomplish this is that retired naval and military officers should in all circumstances be allowed to draw their retired pay from their old employer, and that the new Departments cr Governments em- ploying them should make their own bargain with them. The new rules speak of the "profits of civil employment" as if they were necessarily fixed, but they are easily reconsidered on the occasion of each appointment; and just as there have been in the past in the Colonies a number of appointments with salaries less than three times the retired pay which the Secretary of State or the Colonial Government has been able to fill up at less than "cost price" by securing officers with naval or military emoluments, so there are appointments under other Departments at home (e.g. the professional officers under the Board of Trade, the governorship of gaols, and

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