TREASURY ENCROACHMENT ON THE RIGHTS OF CIVIL SERVANTS.
[To Tall EDITOR OP THE " SPECTLT08."] SIE,—There can be no doubt that the favourable reception given to the Superannuation Bill as a whole has been in part due to the fact that the Civil Service have been till now under the impression that it will in no way affect their present position unless they voluntarily accept its provisions. But it is now evident, as I have pointed out in the Times of Monday, that Section 3 is so worded as to make Section 6 retrospec- tive, and the Bill, if passed as it stands, will deprive, and is intended to deprive, every present Civil servant of the statutory claim that he now possesses to adequate compensation up to a limit of two-thirds of his salary should he be compulsorily retired through abolition of office. It is true that the Treasury claims by a practice that has extended for many years to have reduced the maximum compensation in such cases to what would have been given had the retirement been due to sickness. But the Treasury has not succeeded in showing that its action has been legal. In the opinion of very high authority it is not legal, and I cannot believe that any Civil servant would willingly part with this statutory right, and am con- vinced that very few are aware that it is threatened. The question at issue is really of almost Constitutional import- ance. Is a benefit deliberately conferred by a ParliamentarY statute to be swept away by a mere Departmental regulation, or so long withheld that the Treasury has at last the temerity to declare that it has ceased to exist ? I have referred else- Where to a recent striking exaniple of the injustice of the present Treasury practice, Which it is now proposed to legalise and perpetuate. After seventeen years of entirely satisfactory service, an official with high qualifications, who was enjoying a salary of £350 a year, With the prospect at the age of sixty
of a pension of £145 a year, was turned adrift at the age of fifty-two with a pension of £99 3s, 4d. per annum.—I am,
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