CO129-436 - Acting Governor Claud Sever & Governor Sir May & Public Offices - 1916 [11-12] — Page 623

Therefore when Mr. Robinson says that on

this matter the decision rests with the Secretary of State and not with the Lords Commissioners of the

Treasury or Admiralty;

the answer is that of course

it does, but that this Office has adopted the Treasury rule because it was the Treasury rule and that as we have adopted the Treasury rule we naturally follow the

Treasury interpretation of the rule.

Any other course Moreover the Treasury

would lead to a hopeless muddle. interpretation of what was meant by "allowances" is the reasonable one, and so far as I am aware what was intended. It is not a very easy thing to put into words, but "compensatory payments" is as good as any. In other words by "pay" or "salary", the cash remuner- ation for the service of an officer of his rank or grade in a given post or capacity is meant - by whatever names the payments are called by the Admiralty (whose nomenclature

like that of many of the Colonies is

quite chaotic on this point), while "allowances" means something additional in cash or in kind to cover specific expenditure or special discomfort not to remunerate the officer for special responsibility or work.

*

As Commander Taylour's case has shown the danger of one member of the Office going off in a directly contrary direction to the uniform policy hitherto pursued by the rest of the Office, it may be useful if I set down a precis of the existing decisions of which I have cognisance. There may of

course be others.

The strongest case in favour of our adhering fixedly to Treasury practice is that of Army or Navy Officers who draw "Consolidated pay" as Army

Officers

C

Officers.

Consolidated Pay) Pay

Decided by

Sir G. Fiddes.

X

General

This was raised on Crow Agents/51317/15

-

we went to the Treasury and they 619 replied 57150/15 General that after very full

consideration they had decided that the whole of such consolidated pay must be regarded as pay within the meaning of their Circular of 20th August 1914. Ve accepted and applied this decision, though it seems

clear that consolidated pay covered certain undoubted "allowances"

#

owances which the officer would have drawn if he

had not been put on "consolidated pay".

Engineer Pay)

Armament Pay

Coros Pay

Extra Pay

Decided by

Fr. Collins.

Cecided by

Sir G. Fiddes.

These are specifically classed as "pay" for

this purpose by Treasury circular of 20th August, 1914.

The classification of Engineer pay as pay

was discussed and decided upon on S/33076/15 M.S.

It was again raised by Captain Gwyther, Public Works

Department, Gold Coast, File 5988 (10) West Africa

and the decision was re-affirmed.

Command Money.

Decided by Pr. Strachey.

Lieutenant Commander Greig, R. N. Nigerian

Marine Department raised this File/4361 (34)

West Africa.

We replied (29th October 1915) that "as the Admiralty have informed the Crown Agents that Command money is for this purpose regarded as pay and not as an allowance the Secretary of State was unable to authorize the Crown Agents to disregard the amount of his command money in computing the amount of his

Colonial Allowance.

A similar representation was received in August 1916 from Lieutenant C. J. Burn, Royal Naval Reserve, Marine Officer, Nigeria (File/1803 (56) West Africa.)

though