RETIRED OFFICERS OF THE VARIOUS CIVIL SERVICES IN INDIA.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sm,—I trust-that you will allow me to bring to public notice in your columns the unfortunate position of certain retired officers of the various Civil Services in India, other than the Indian Civil Service. It would take much space to explain all the bearings of the case, but the main issues are simple. The officers of these Indian Services, aggrieved at the inade- quacy of their pensiqns under pre-War conditions. eventually memorialized the Government in a body during the few years succeeding 1906. The Government, unable to make up their minds, appointed in 1912 a Royal Public Services Commission to report on the matter. In the meantime, the men had become very restive, and on an appeal against the delay the Government of India on July 23rd, 1913, issued a letter saying that the Secretary of State's orders on the Commission's recommendations must be awaited, and adding that if the pensions came to be improved, the memorialists would participate in the improved terms, even if the altera- tions were effected after their retirement.
The Commission's Report reached the India Office, it is believed, in 1917, and in November, 1919, Mr. Montagu passed orders allowing the enhanced pensions recommended by the Commission to all officers who retired after July 23rd, 1913, the date of the letter above referred to, and debarring all those who retired prior to that date. It is against this monstrous decision that the older officers of the Services concerned, many of them in penury owing to pensions pro- nounced inadequate under pre-War conditions, and obviously now much more inadequate, feel so bitterly aggrieved. They have appealed over and over again without result, and it is earnestly hoped that Members of Parliament will take up
their case for them,, and seek to remove a flagrant injustice in the interests of a body of men, many of them with distin- guished careers, who have given the best of their lives to India and who arc now suffering much hardship.--I ant, (lion. See. Indian Civil PCIIS10113 Comm itte
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