asked the Secretary of State for India if he is aware that British executive officers of the Indian Army who became qualified for pension between 1st January and 1st April, 1919, were awarded pensions on the same scale as officers of the British Army in India; that those qualifying between 1st April, 1919, and 1st October, 1925, were awarded pensions lower by £90 a year; and that in 1925 equality of pensions with officers of the British Army was again conceded; and if he will now urge the Government of India to make this concession apply to the officers of the Indian Army who retired between 1919 and 1925 and whose services deserve equal treatment?

I have explained the position with regard to departmental officers of the India Unattached List in a statement furnished to the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for Bournemouth (Sir H. Croft) which I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT. I fear I can hold out no hope of reversing the existing decision.

Does it mean that the Secretary of State condones the injustice towards these men simply because they happen to fall in a different year of retirement?

I do not like to hear that reflection on the late Government.

Was it not a mistake that these officers were left out, seeing that before April, 1919, and after 1925 they were treated in the same way as British officers of the Indian Army, and will the right hon. Gentleman not rectify this error?

I do not accept the hon. and gallant Member's presentation of the case.

Is it not the right hon. Gentleman's object to try and redress grievances that may have been made by previous Governments?

Certainly.

Following is the statement:

It was decided in 1920 not to apply the British Army rules and rates for pension to departmental officers of the India Unattached List, because the conditions of service of these officers, unlike those of officers of the Indian Army generally, were markedly different from those of the corresponding classes in the British Army. The effect of the 1920 scheme was to give these departmental officers the equivalent on an average of the corresponding British Army pensions, having regard to the differences in conditions of service; though some individuals might receive rather more and others rather less. The difference of £90 quoted in the question represents the extreme case in which the maximum of £360 for a departmental Major is compared with the maximum of £450 for a Major in the British Army. Owing, however., to the difference in conditions, the proportion of departmental officers who could expect to attain the maximum pension of £360 was much greater than that of the corresponding officers in the British Army who could expect to attain their maximum of £450.