/ J Q 
 
 249 
 

// 
 
 ^alL. Ip^^^ 
 
 THE 
 
 REFORM 
 
 LEAVE AND PAY CODES. 
 
 ALLAHABAD : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE PIONEER PRESS. 
 1886. 
 
7 
 
 THE REFORM OF THE LEAVE & PAYCODES. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 In re-imposing the Income Tax the Government 
 of India has now to confront an administrative pro- 
 blem of the greatest difficulty. It has found it necessary 
 (and nearly every official admits the necessity) to demand 
 a tax of nearly 3 per cent, from its employes at a time 
 when they are already losing 20 per cent, of their sala- 
 ries by the loss in exchange. To these two losses must 
 be added the decline in salaries, which in the Covenant- 
 ed Civil Service amounts to about 15 per cent, in the 
 last twenty years ; while in the Telegraph, Forest, 
 Police, Public Works, and other Departments, it is be- 
 lieved to« be fully as much. These three deductions add- 
 ed together make a total loss of about ^2^^ per cent, on 
 salaries, and we may safely say that an Indian official re- 
 ceives for his own use at least 35 per cent, less than he 
 used to do twenty years ago It is the fashion now to 
 talk of the loss by exchange as 25 per cent, of salaries. 
 This is, of course, an exaggeration, which could only be 
 true if an Anglo-Indian spent the whole of his salary in 
 Europe or on European articles. What is true is that 
 he loses 25 per cent, on such portions of his salary as he 
 remits to England or spends on articles of western 
 origin. To the man, however, with a large family at 
 home, who remits them three-fourths of his pay, and 
 spends nearly all the remaining fourth on absolutely ne- 
 cessary articles, such as clothes, conveyances, and the 
 like, this portion may amount to seven-eighths of his 
 whole salary, for the only thing on which he does not 
 lose is his own food. To the average man who remits, 
 say, one-half of his salary to England, and spends the 
 other half freely in India, the loss by exchange will not 
 be more than '15 to 18 per cent. Still be as accurate as 
 
 M40983 
 
:\^-ie:';iti^y: in: o]ur estimate, it is impossible to put the 
 average loss by exchange at less than 17 per cent., and 
 this, with 3 per cent. Income Tax and 15 per cent, re- 
 duction in salaries, makes a total loss of 35 per cent., 
 which the Indian official undoubtedly suffers, and which 
 the Government must allow for, and inust take cognizance 
 of. If it does not, one of two things will most assured- 
 ly happen — either the standard of education, ability, and 
 efficiency In the various services will decrease in pro- 
 portion as the salaries decrease, or the officials, in at 
 any rate the lower grades, will make up the deficiency 
 in some of the many ways open to Europeans in an 
 Oriental country. The Government must confront the 
 problem ; It is no use avoiding it, and hoping that all 
 will go on as before; that men will be as honest, as la- 
 borious, as Intelligent on small salaries as on larger ones. 
 We know that they will not ; and that the honest, la- 
 borious, and intelligent will carry their wares (which 
 have a very distinct market value) to other markets, 
 where they can dispose of them at better prices. What 
 we shall have left, to perform the most difficult task 
 which any nation ever undertook, will be the idle, the 
 stupid, the dissatisfied, and possibly the dishonest, and 
 Heaven help us and India after twenty years of such a 
 regime. We should probably have very little of India 
 left to govern by that time ; but while there is any left, 
 it is clearly the duty of the Indian Government and the 
 English people to take all reasonable precautions to 
 secure the integrity and efficiency of the classes through 
 whom it governs and administers India. The question 
 then arises — What can the Government do for Its em- 
 ployesto compensate them for the very serious loss they 
 are suffering } 
 
 It is at once apparent that a Government which Is 
 itself losing three or four millions sterling a year by 
 exchange, cannot undertake to make good to its employes 
 the whole of their loss under this head : the utmost that 
 can be asked is, that the Government -should allow a 
 
( 3 ) 
 
 certain portion of each European's salary to be remitted 
 to England at a more favourable rate. What portion 
 that should be, and at what rate it could be remitted, Is 
 a question for experts ; but If the Government could see 
 Its way to allowing the remittance of one-fourth of 
 salaries at is. gd. the rupee, there Is no doubt that it 
 would be felt by most officials as a very sensible allevia- 
 tion of their burdens. What this would cost, it is im- 
 possible to say without elaborate calculations ; but the 
 benefit should be strictly confined to Europeans who 
 have been sent out to India by the Secretary of State, 
 and who have, therefore, the right to measure their sa- 
 laries by a European standard, and to expect to be able 
 to avail themselves of European advantages for their 
 children and for themselves. An officer who comes out 
 to India in search of employment and who Aere accepts 
 service, is on a totally different footing : he has taken 
 local service and is locally appointed, and he cannot In 
 the same way claim the advantages of Europe. If the 
 grant were limited in the way we suggest, we do not 
 think that it would amount to any very considerable 
 sum ; and if it were granted, the Government would 
 have the satisfaction of knowing that it had levied an 
 Income Tax from those who could well afford it, and 
 from those who were actually gaining by the decline in 
 the price of silver, while it afforded a material compensa- 
 tion to those of its employes who were losing most 
 heavily by that decline, and the circumstances of whose 
 engagements with the Government pointed them out 
 as the fittest recipients of such compensation. But, 
 after all, the extent over which such an allowance could 
 be spread, and the amount of it, must be very problem- 
 atical. There would be great opposition to It from the 
 so-called friends of India, and possibly, too, from those 
 classes of officials who would not profit by it ; and again, 
 whatever sum was spent on this relief, must be deducted 
 from the profits of the Income Tax. There are, there- 
 fore, serious objections to it, which the Government 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 would have to consider and to overcome before it could 
 sanction the concession. What we want to discover on 
 the other hand, are concessions which would cost the 
 Government nothing, which would injure no one, which 
 would raise the envy of no excluded class, which are only- 
 prevented by routine and inertia, and which would yet 
 be substantial concessions to the very classes which are 
 suffering most at present. 
 
 Such concessions we believe we can point out. We 
 will merely nmne them in the present article, and will 
 reserve the discussion of them in detail till a future 
 occasion. They all relate more or less to the terms on 
 which officials are now allowed to take leave, or to act 
 for one another, or to earn the pensions obtained by 
 long service. The present Leave and Acting Allow- 
 ance Codes are elaborate, over-refined, unduly minute, 
 and most intricate compilations, which are so complicat- 
 ed that not one official in ten outside the Account 
 Offices even pretends to understand them, while the 
 Account Officers themselves pretend to understand them 
 and do not. Of this there is abundant proof in their 
 conflicting decisions, for which, however, there is small 
 blame to them, as anyone may satisfy himself who cares 
 to investigate the rules for acting allowances in graded 
 appointments, or any other sweet simplicities of that 
 sort. 
 
 What we advocate is the sweeping away of all the 
 cobwebs which have gradually grown up around the 
 Leave and Allowance Codes, and the reduction of them 
 to a few simple rules, which, while protecting the inter- 
 ests of Government, should allow as much freedom of 
 action as possible to the individual. It should always 
 be remembered that the individual employe has primd 
 facie the right to do anything he wishes with regard to 
 his leave, so long as he does not injure the interests of 
 Government, i.e., of the tax-payer. All rules which are 
 prescribed for these purposes are merely intended to 
 safeguard the interests of the public against its employes 
 
( 5 ) 
 
 and to prevent abuses ; and as long as these ends are 
 secured, it is enough. All further restrictions are harm- 
 ful and unjust to the employ^ and useless to the Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The great principle to lay down with regard to leave 
 is, that the Government should prescribe the total 
 arnount of leave of each kind to be enjoyed by its ser- 
 vants, and, that being fixed, it should allow them to take 
 the leave in any instalments and in any combinations 
 they please, due care being taken that an employe should 
 not anticipate his leave, i. e., take more than he is 
 entitled to on account of the period for which he has 
 served. For, if this were allowed, a man might come out 
 to India and serve a year and then take two years' leave, 
 and resign at the end of it, which would be obviously 
 unfair to the State, and should not be allowed even on 
 medical certificate, as it now is. But with this one pre- 
 caution against anticipating leave, we would sweep away 
 all restrictions whatever, and let officials of every grade 
 take their leave how and when they pleased, and as 
 might be most convenient for thern. The less restric- 
 tion there is on the part of Government the less fre- 
 quently will men take leave ; for they now^ take it in 
 instalments, and take one kind after another at short in- 
 tervals, simply because they are not allowed to combine 
 the different kinds of leave and take one in continuation 
 of the other. Yet it is obviously for the advantage of 
 Government that their employes should take a few long 
 periods of leave at long intervals rather than many short 
 periods at short intervals ; for each taking of leave in- 
 volves a dislocation and break of continuity in the ad- 
 ministration, and causes charges for joining time and 
 subsidiary leave, which are merely so much useless ex- 
 penditure to the Government. Our general principle be- 
 ing thus stated, we shall proceed in the next chapter 
 to examine in detail the results and advantages of grant- 
 ing leave without any restrictions further than those 
 mentioned above as to total amount and anticipation. 
 
Chapter II. 
 
 In Chapter I we showed why the Income Tax will 
 fall with special severity on officials at the present time, 
 and gave reasons why Government should make certain 
 inexpensive concessions to their employes, and we indi- 
 cated in outline the form which we considered that 
 these concessions might well take. We now proceed 
 to consider in detail what these concessions might be, 
 and what would be the effect of granting them. 
 
 (I). — Leave. We shall take the Covenanted Civil 
 Service as an example, both because it is the best paid 
 and most numerous service, and because the rules relating 
 to it are more fixed and better known than any others, and 
 we shall deal, in the first place, with the rules affecting leave 
 of all kinds. At present the total leave which a Civilian 
 can take with pay is six years' furlough, six months' 
 special leave, and as many months' privilege leave as he 
 has completed years of active service ; but he can only 
 take this leave with many limitations. First, he may 
 not take any one of these kinds of leave in continuation 
 of another kind; (2) he may not accumulate more than 
 three months' privilege leave ; (3) he may not take fur- 
 lough till three months after he has returned from pri- 
 vilege leave ; (4) he may not take more than two years* 
 furlough at a time ; (5) he must render eight years' ac- 
 tive service before taking any furlough (except on me- 
 dical certificate) ; and (6) he may not take furlough 
 again for three years after his return from last furlough. 
 Now, it may be said at once that all these restrictions 
 should be swept away, and one general rule substituted, 
 that a Civilian may take the above leave at any time of 
 his service, and in any manner he likes (including com- 
 binations of different kinds of leave), provided that he 
 does not take more than one years' leave for every four 
 years' active service he has completed. All leave beyond 
 or in anticipation of this would be taken on subsistence 
 
( 7 ) 
 
 allowance or without pay, as the Government might 
 decide. This would guard the interests of Government 
 more effectually than the present rules ; for it would 
 prevent men coming out to India for two or three years, 
 and then going home on long-conthiued sick leave, which 
 only ends in resignation. Such men may be much to be 
 pitied ; but it is not equitable to the State that they should 
 render only two years' service and then enjoy two years' 
 leave on half-pay. If they have been able to complete 
 only two years' service before taking sick leave, they should 
 be entitled to only six months' leave on half-pay, and the 
 rest on subsistence allowance. But such cases are ex- 
 tremely rare, and what we have to consider is, the effect 
 on the average Civilian of such a simple and equitable 
 rule as that proposed. Can anyone doubt that it would 
 be an enormous boon to him ? At present he is hamper- 
 ed on all sides ; and Instead of leaving him to take his 
 leave how and when he pleases, the Government keeps 
 him in leading strings, and tells him he may do this and 
 may not do that, just as If he were a child. Let us con- 
 sider each of the restrictions separately, and It will be 
 seen how unnecessary they are, and how vexatious they 
 may often become. 
 
 ( I ). No one kind of leave may be taken in conti- 
 nuation of another kind. By this rule it is impossible to 
 add on three months' privilege leave to three months or 
 four months' furlough, and so go home for a hot weather 
 partly on full pay. Many a man could do this, who 
 could not afford to go home for seven months on half- 
 pay, and what harm would it bring the Government 
 \Le., the tax-payer .^) What happens at present is, that 
 the official takes three months' privilege leave, when- 
 ever he has accumulated it, and then takes furlough the 
 next year. This Is constantly happening and cannot be 
 prevented ; yet It is distinctly much more disadvantage- 
 ous to Government than if the man took leave once 
 combining the two leaves. For at present there are 
 two breaks in the continuity of the appointment — one 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 when he takes privilege leave, and another when he 
 takes furlough ; and two periods of joining time allowed 
 to the officer who acts for him, both in coming to join 
 the appointment and in returning to his own appoint- 
 ment. ♦ 
 
 So, too, if a man have six months' furlough and six 
 months' private affairs to his credit, why should he not 
 be allowed to take the whole period continuously ? At 
 present he is forced to return from the one kind of leave 
 for six months before he can take the other kind of leave 
 and in this way two periods of subsidiary leave are 
 unnecessarily granted to the officer taking leave, and two 
 periods of joining time are given to the officer acting 
 for him, whereas one of each would be all that would be 
 required, if the whole leave could be taken continuously. 
 It follows that the distinction between special leave 
 and furlough should be done away with altogether as 
 unnecessarily complicating. It is merely a survival of 
 the time when no one would go to England for so short 
 a period as six months, unless he had some very urgent 
 reason for it; but now-a-days when no one thinks any- 
 thing of going to England on even three months' leave, 
 it is absurd and useless to keep up a distinction without 
 a difference between two kinds of leave which are really 
 one and the same. At present the total period of leave 
 (with pay) Is six years' furlough and six months' special 
 leave. It would be a graceful and considerate act of the 
 Government if, taking Into account the unavoidable 
 misfortunes of its servants, It were to change these two 
 periods Into 07ie period of seven years' furlough, and 
 abolish the distinction between the two kinds of leave. 
 As the actual residence required of a Civilian Is 2 1 years, 
 this would leave the proportion exactly one year of 
 furlough to each three years of actual residence in the 
 country. The increased cost would hardly be appreci- 
 able, as many Civilians would not take the extra six 
 months in any case. There would then only be two 
 kinds of leave : — 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 (i). Privilege leave, on full pay, amounting to one 
 month for every 1 1 months of residence completed; and 
 (2) Furlough, on half-pay, amounting to one year for every 
 three years of residence completed. These should be 
 permitted to be taken in any combination that might be 
 desired, provided that the rules of total quantity and 
 anticipation were not broken. Another boon which might 
 be easily granted is, that privilege leave should not be 
 forfeited by taking furlough, but should be accumulated 
 and worked off in a separate account. At present it is 
 extremely hard, and even unjust, that if a man falls sick 
 and has to take more than three months' leave when he 
 has earned three months' privilege leave, he forfeits the 
 whole of the latter leave, although it was fairly earned by- 
 actual residence, and though the sickness may have been 
 due to hard work, or exposure in the Government service. 
 An account of the privilege leave each officer has earned 
 should be kept, and the amount earned should remain at 
 his credit in all cases, until he has received it and used 
 it up. 
 
 Coming now to the second restriction — (2). Privi- 
 lege leave shall not be accumulated for more than three 
 months. Why not .'^ In what way does the accumulation 
 injure Government } On the contrary, it is much better 
 for Government that an officer should remain at his post 
 for four or five years, and should then take four or five 
 months' privilege leave, than that he should take one 
 month's leave in each year. The latter system, as point- 
 ed out above, leads to unnecessary expense to Govern- 
 ment and unnecessary breaks in the continuity of office. 
 The old theory used to be that the officer must h^ forced 
 to take leave at least once in three years to maintain his 
 health and efficiency ; but there is no need of any forcing 
 now-a-days; every man will take leave if he can afford 
 it; it is all a question of expense, and it is less expensive 
 to the individual and less injurious to the administration 
 that leave should be taken in a few large instalments, 
 rather than in many small ones. In bye-gone days, when 
 
( lo ) 
 
 ties with England were few and with India many, when 
 travelling was difficult and even dangerous, and when 
 the Indian official not infrequently settled down for life in 
 India with small thought of his native country or his 
 abandoned friends, it may have been necessary lo force 
 him to take leave at stated intervals. But now, when a 
 14-day voyage lands him in Europe, when most men 
 run home every second or third year, and when every 
 man's thoughts and interests are centred in England, 
 there is no occasion whatever to force or tempt him to 
 take leave. Give him the opportunity to take it when 
 and how he pleases, and the money to do it with, and he 
 will take every day's leave you allow him. We therefore 
 say allow privilege leave to accumulate without limit. 
 If a man has done eight years' actual service for the 
 Government in India without a day's leave, he has 
 earned eight months' leave on full pay, if any man 
 ever could, and by all means let him have It, if he has 
 not forfeited It by any misconduct or Indolence. 
 
 The third restriction would be swept away incident- 
 ally If the above proposals were carried into effect. It 
 is that (3) /2<? one shall be entitled to take furlough within 
 three months after his return from privilege leave. 
 
 The theory of this rule is supposed to be that pri- 
 vilege leave is not a reward for past services, but a 
 vacation to enable a man to render future services; and that 
 an officer must therefore perform at least three months' 
 service after his return from privilege leave before he 
 can be allowed to take any other kind of leave, even if 
 he has got plenty to his credit. But the theory will not 
 hold water. Privilege leave is given after a certain period 
 of actual residence and service, and not before it ; and do 
 what you will, all officers will regard it (and rightly too) 
 as the reward of that service, and as fairly earned by 
 past service, whether the individual is able to render 
 any further service or not. 
 
 The present restriction is only an extension of the 
 general principle regarding the not taking one kind of 
 
( II ) 
 
 leave In extension of another kind, and both should 
 equally be abolished. It leads constantly to the return 
 of a man to his post for the bare three months required, 
 and to his taking furlough directly this period is comple- 
 ted. This practice is bad, both for the Government and 
 the individual as we have shown above. It is need- 
 lessly expensive to both, and neither the officer nor his 
 locum tenens work up to full pressure during short 
 periods of office like three months. All important matters 
 are held over, all big pieces of work are shirked during 
 such short incumbencies, and it should be the aim of 
 Government to so shape the rules that men should not 
 be tempted to take short periods of leave, but should 
 have every inducement to continue at work as long as 
 they are able, and then to take leave for not less than 
 six or eight months. The constant changes in the 
 tenure of office in India are one of the greatest hindrances , 
 to good administration and one of the greatest difficul- 
 ties in our government of this country ; and in a tropical 
 climate the necessary changes caused by ill-health alone 
 will always be too frequent. Changes other than these 
 should clearly be minimised by Government and not 
 encouraged, as they are, by the present leave rules. 
 
Chapter III. 
 
 In the two previous chapters an endeavour has been 
 made to show that an acceptable and inexpensive set-off 
 to the Income Tax, which bears so hardly upon the official 
 world, might be found in a radical reform of the leave rules. 
 In the last chapter we considered in detail, and showed 
 the propriety of abolishing three out of the six restric- 
 tions which at present prevent an official from taking 
 leave how and when he likes — the non-combination of 
 different kinds of leave, the non-accumulation of privilege 
 leave, and the rule which prohibits furlough within three 
 months of privilege leave. We propose now to examine 
 the remaining three restrictions on leave, and then to 
 pass on to the subject of acting allowances. 
 
 (4). The fourth restriction is, that a Civilian may 
 not take more than two years' furlough at a time. The 
 object of the rule is supposed to be to prevent an official 
 from taking so long a furlough that he might get rusty 
 in his w^ork, and have difficulty in keeping up with all 
 that had gone on while he was away. But we very much 
 doubt whether any further ill-effect would be produced by 
 three years' furlough than by two years. Of course, from 
 the simple desk- work point of view, a man gets rusty and 
 behindhand while he is away on furlough ; it cannot be 
 helped ; it is one of the penalties we pay for governing 
 the country through European agency, but it is after all 
 better for the State that the official should take one long 
 furlough of three or four years, and get rusty only once, 
 than that he should take one year s furlough four times 
 over, and waste three months each time in getting fully 
 into harness again. Of the two things, we should be more 
 disposed to fix a minimum for furlough than a maximum, 
 and to say that no man should go on leave for less than six 
 months unless ordered by the doctors ; but the truth is, that 
 all restrictions are bad, and that the expense of furlough, 
 the ennui of it after a certain time, and the desire to get 
 
( 13 ) 
 
 back to work and be ready for any chances of promotion 
 that may come in the way, will always prevent men from 
 taking too long a furlough ; while the expense of the voyage 
 and of breaking up house will prevent their taking short 
 furloughs too often. If a man has earned four years'. fur- 
 lough by sixteen years' continuous residence, we see no 
 reason why he should not be allowed to take it ; but it will 
 not happen once in a decade that a man does want to 
 take four years' furlough ; still the restriction should be 
 removed, as it is unnecessary and might be very pre- 
 judicial in a few cases. 
 
 (5). The fifth restriction is, that a Civilian cannot 
 take any furlough (without medical certificate) until he 
 has completed eight years' active service {i.e., actual resi- 
 dence). This is a most unnecessary restriction; all that 
 is required is to guard against the official's taking more 
 furlough than he has actually earned; but there is no 
 reason whatever why a man should not take one year's 
 furlough after four years' residence, or eighteen months' 
 furlough after six years' residence, if it suits him to do so. 
 Indeed, now-a-days nearly everyone does go home be- 
 fore he has completed eight years' service by getting a 
 medical certificate, or by pleading urgent private affairs; 
 and it is much better that the healthy (and presumably 
 best workers), and those who are too proud to invent 
 urgent private affairs, when they have not got them, 
 should be able to go when they please, as freely as the 
 sickly or the less conscientious members of the service. 
 
 (6). The sixth and last restriction is, that a Civilian 
 may not take furlough again for three years after his re- 
 turn from last furlough. We altogether fail to see that 
 this restriction is any more necessary than its prede- 
 cessors. It is no doubt desirable, as we have said above, 
 that an officer should not take a succession of short 
 leaves at frequent intervals ; but there is no reason why 
 he should be made to wait three years for his next 
 furlough if he has earned it before that time. Suppose 
 an officer has completed twelve years' actual residence, 
 
( H ) 
 
 which entitles him to three years' furlough. He goes 
 home on two years' furlough, leaving him with one year 
 to his credit ; and a year after his return, when he has 
 earned another four months' furlough, he wishes for 
 sixteen months' furlough for urgent family reasons. On 
 what ground should it be refused to him and in what 
 way is Government injured by his being permitted to 
 take it? One great advantage of the abolition of these 
 needless restrictions would be that it would remove the 
 necessity of getting medical certificates, and the temp- 
 tation to get them when not really requisite for health. At 
 present the restrictions hamper and punish the conscien- 
 tious man, who won't ask for a medical certificate unless 
 he is very ill, or the unlucky man who has a particular- 
 ly stern Civil Surgeon at his station ; while the less 
 particular man, or the lucky man with an easy- 
 going Civil Surgeon, drives a coach-and-four through 
 the rules, and goes home when he likes on a medical 
 certificate which is granted as a matter of course. The 
 above are the six restrictions which most commonly 
 interfere with what we regard as the inalienable right of 
 the Indian official to take his leave how and when he 
 likes, so long as he does not anticipate it {i.e., take it 
 before he has earned it), and does not exceed the total 
 allowed him; and we sincerely hope that the Govern- 
 ment will see their way to sweeping away all these restric- 
 tions, and leaving men to do what they wish. Rules like 
 laws are priina facie evils, and they must always justify 
 their existence. In this case we think it has been shown 
 that they have failed to do so, and their abolition, while in 
 no way injuring the Government or the tax-payer, would 
 be a real boon to the official. And although our illustra- 
 tions have been drawn from the Civil Service, all that has 
 been said applies equally to all those who enjoy the more 
 favourable leave rules under Chapter V of the Leave Code, 
 i.e., Military Officers in civil employ, and Uncovenanted 
 Officers of the higher ranks (in Schedules A and B), besides 
 Civil Servants ; and it applies, mutatis mutandis ^ according 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 to the different rules under which they serve, to all 
 officials in India, down to the clerk on Rs. 20 a month. 
 We are therefore writing in the cause of a very large 
 body of men, amounting to many thousands, and not for 
 a favoured few who desire special privileges ; and we 
 believe that it will be apparent to the Government that 
 to render more contented so large a body of men, and to 
 get more willing and heartier service out of them, is no 
 mean object, and is one for which it is well worth the 
 trouble to ponder over the matter a little, and see whe- 
 ther these suggestions cannot really be carried into effect 
 with very little difficulty and with no cost or injury to 
 the State. 
 
 (II). — Acting Allowances. We now pass on to the 
 Acting Allowance Rules which, though not so complicat- 
 ed as the Leave Rules, yet contain one or two provisions 
 which are even more restrictive than any of those con- 
 tained in the latter rules. No rule in any of the Codes 
 has caused so much irritation and so much feeling of 
 injustice as the recently-enacted provision that an officer 
 shall not draw acting allowance during xh^ first month of 
 the permanent officer's absence on privilege leave. The 
 rule is based on a false conception of the 7'easons for 
 which acting allowances are given. They are really given 
 to pay or recompense the officer for the harder and more 
 responsible work he has to do when acting in a higher 
 appointment; and as he has to do exactly the same kind 
 and amount of work, when he is acting for an officer on 
 privilege leave, as he has when he is acting for an officer 
 on furlough, he ought to receive exactly the same remu- 
 neration in either case ; and the description of leave en- 
 joyed by the absent officer is a matter quite beside the 
 questioft of the allowances to be paid to the acting officer. 
 The framers of the present rule evidently held that be- 
 cause the officer on privilege leave draws full pay while 
 absent, there is no margin or saving to spare for act- 
 ing allowance for the acting officer, and he therefore 
 cannot receive any. But the position is illogical, and 
 
( i6 ) 
 
 the Government, if It is bent on economy, should recoup 
 itself in some other way. The acting officer has imposed 
 on him a greater quantity of work, and a more responsi- 
 ble and difficult kind of work, than he had in his own 
 appointment, and the barest justice requires that he 
 should be paid extra for doing this extra work. 
 It is, of course, well known in India that this rule was 
 strongly opposed by the Government of India, and that 
 it is to the Secretary of State's Council that the Indian 
 official world owes this boon. The economy effected by 
 it is but petty, for whenever an officer is moved from one 
 station to another he draws three-fourths of the acting 
 allowance during the first month of privilege leave, so it 
 is only in cases where an officer acts in a higher grade 
 without being moved that he receives no remuneration 
 whatever. It is just in these cases, however, that the 
 restriction is so irritating, for the officer feels that he is 
 doing much more work than before for Government and 
 is getting nothing in return for it. This inequitable 
 rule is of quite recent date; and the Government of India 
 could not do a more popular thing, or offer a more 
 acceptable recompense for the Income Tax and the fall 
 in exchange, than to insist on its abolition, and to tell 
 the Secretary of wState (what is the fact) that it causes a 
 great deal more discontent than the small economy is 
 worth. This would, however, be only a drop in the 
 ocean. What we would advocate with regard to acting 
 allowances is a very radical measure, and one that at 
 first sight would seem to be anything but satisfactory 
 for the officials concerned; it is the total abolition of 
 these allowances. By this we mean, not that an officer 
 should receive no extra pay for acting in a higher appoint- 
 ment, but that he should receive the same pay, Vlrhether 
 he acted in it or was the permanent holder of It. This 
 could, of course, only be managed by taking averages of 
 the pay, both acting and permanent, and giving the 
 holder of the appointment that amount of salary which 
 was found to be the average one for both permanent and 
 
( 17 ) 
 
 acting holders of the appointment. Of the justice of this 
 measure there can be no doubt, for the acting officer does 
 exactly the same kind and amount of work as the per- 
 manent officer; and that it would cause a large saving to 
 Government in audit clerks and unnecessary correspon- 
 dence is also certain. But consideration of any further 
 details in this connection must be reserved for another 
 chapter. 
 
Chapter IV. 
 
 In the last chapter the theory was broached that the 
 best reform of the Acting Allowance Rules is the total 
 abolition of acting allowances. But to make this position 
 good It is necessary to go a little more into details. If 
 separate acting allowances were abolished and all pay 
 consolidated at one rate (whether the officer was acting 
 or permanent), it is clear that the maximum rate for the 
 consolidated pay must be the present permanent pay, and 
 that the minimum rate would be the present officiating 
 pay ; while the new consolidated pay might be fixed at 
 any point intermediate between these two. The object, 
 of course, is to give the same total pay to a whole service 
 or a whole department as it now obtains, so that Govern- 
 ment should neither lose nor gain ; while all the compli- 
 cations and intricacies of the present Acting Allowance 
 Rules would be swept away, all the auditors and check- 
 ing clerks now employed in enforcing them would be 
 abolished, and every officer would know beforehand exact- 
 ly what pay he would be entitled to draw in any appoint- 
 ment, whether he were posted to it permanently or tem- 
 porarily. The only difficulty is to settle at what point 
 between the maximum and minimum the consolidated 
 pay should be fixed; and when the matter was under dis- 
 cussion some years ago, we believe that it was propos- 
 ed to take three years average pay of each appointment, 
 and ^y. the consolidated pay at the average so arrived at. 
 This plan would, in practice, lead t\o considerable injustice, 
 as the average would be greatly affected by the propor- 
 tion of this three years which the permanent incumbent 
 might have spent on leave. To prevent this the calcula- 
 tions for the average might be spread over a longer 
 period, say ^v^ years, so as to allow for all variations ; 
 and the average value of each particular appointment be- 
 ing thus arrived at, the average of the averages of all the 
 appointments of this class should be fixed as the consoli- 
 
( 19 ) 
 
 dated pay of the appointment, whether permanent or 
 acting. 
 
 The plan will probably be best illustrated by an 
 example. Take the case of a Magistrate and Collector, 
 1st grade, in these Provinces. His permanent pay is 
 Rs. 2,250 a month. If the office is filled by a second grade 
 Collector acting as first grade, he still gets Rs. 2,250, as 
 his permanent salary is Rs. 1,833 ^^^ ^^^ acting allowance 
 Rs. 417; but if it is filled by a Joint- Magistrate, first grade, 
 acting as Collector, first grade, he gets only Rs. 1,000 pay 
 plus Rs. %i'^ acting allowance, or Rs. 1,833 in all, while 
 in other cases he might get Rs. 1,945 or Rs. 2,055. ^^y 
 then, we take five years of any Collectorship, say Allah- 
 abad, and find that during those sixty months the office 
 has been held for twenty-four months by an officer on 
 Rs. 2,250, for sixteen months by one on Rs. 2,055, ^^^ 
 twelve months by one on Rs. 1,945, and for eight months 
 by one on Rs. 1,833, we know that the average pay of 
 the Allahabad Collectorship for five years has been 
 Rs. 2,081 a month. Applying the same process to all the 
 first grade Collectorships in the N.-W. P., we might find 
 that the average pay of all the twenty-two first grade 
 Collectorships for the last five years has been Rs. 2,10a, 
 and we should then fix the future consolidated pay of a 
 first grade Collector in the N.-W. Provinces at Rs. 2,100, 
 whether he is permanent or acting. Government neither 
 lose nor gain on the pay, as it is ex hypothesi exactly the 
 average of what Government would have paid under the 
 old rules; but Government gain enormously as regards 
 the calculating and checking establishments of clerks in 
 the Treasuries and Account Offices, where scores of 
 hands are employed all day long, some of them in calcu- 
 lating these intricate allowances, and the others in picking 
 holes in the work of the former. How intricate the 
 calculations are in some cases, such as those of officers 
 on progressive salaries, no one can realise who has not 
 tried with equal weariness to ascertain what his own pay 
 ought to be, or what somebody else's really was. But any 
 
( 20 ) 
 
 one who still feels any curiosity in the matter will pro- 
 bably find that curiosity speedily quenched by a perusal 
 of Chapter IX of the present Acting Allowance Code. 
 Government, therefore, gain by reducing establishments 
 and simplifying all kinds of calculation with regard to 
 salaries; while the individual officer gains very consider- 
 ably by the certainty of knowing what pay he ought to 
 draw at any moment, and even of what he will draw at 
 any future moment; by the removal of the now too 
 frequent disputes with the Treasuries and Account 
 Offices; by the absence of fluctuations in his salary, and 
 of the odious necessity of refunding salary overdrawn 
 through the vicious system which makes it impossible to 
 tell what that salary ought to be. There are several 
 other restrictions in the Acting Allowance Rules which 
 might with great advantage be removed ; but it is use- 
 less to discuss them in detail while holding that the whole 
 system should be abolished, and that the words "acting 
 allowance" should no longer be found in the Pay Codes. 
 
 (III). — Travelling Allowances. We arrive now at 
 the related subject of travelling allowances, which are 
 as fertile a source of dispute and annoyance, of constant 
 worry, and of occasional injustice, as acting allowances, 
 and which might equally well be swept away and abolish- 
 ed from our Codes. In a complex and varied polity like 
 that of the Government of India, it is inevitable that all 
 sorts of excrescences should by degrees grow up around 
 the parent stem ; but it is as necessary to the official sys- 
 tem as to the vegetable that these excrescences should be 
 lopped ofT and destroyed when they become troublesome, 
 unsightly, or dangerous to the body politic on which they 
 feed and from which they derive their existence. If we 
 consider how these allowances have grown up and come 
 into being, we shall see how necessary and advantageous 
 it is, both for the Government and for the official himself, 
 that they should be from time to time revised, and, as it 
 were, codified. Each rule was originally deduced from a 
 single case — was, in fact, an instance of case-made law; it 
 
( 21 ) 
 
 was next applied to other similar cases, and became a 
 precedent, and finally it was crystallized into a dogma, by 
 which all future analogous cases were to be governed. 
 In the early days of our Indian Empire, when tra- 
 velling was tedious, expensive, and often dangerous, 
 an officer was ordered, say, from Calcutta to Benares. 
 During the long hours of his journey the thought natur- 
 ally often occurred to him that he deserved some com- 
 pensation for the separation from his companions in 
 Calcutta, for the hardships he was suffering on the jour- 
 ney, and the dreary and solitary life he was about to lead 
 at some remote station or outpost. If he was an ingeni- 
 ous man, and at the same time of a practical turn of mind, 
 his meditations soon took a concrete shape; and he sent 
 in (i) a travelling allowance bill for his journey, and (2) a 
 claim for local allowance (like Kirwi or Kassia). Before 
 long one of his companions in exile fell sick, and he was 
 directed to perform the duties of his superior temporarily. 
 It soon seemed to him hard that he should perform more 
 responsible and difficult duties for the same salary as be- 
 fore, and he at once claimed (3) an acting allowance. 
 Before long perhaps he defended his post with bravery 
 against an attack of natives, and saved the property of 
 the Company or of the Government, while others of their 
 servants showed timidity or want of vigilance; he con- 
 trasted his own services and merits with theirs, and soon 
 formulated a claim for (4) special allowances. Thus, in a 
 very short time, our typical official of the old days had 
 created the four chief kinds of extra allowances beyond 
 salary ; and though, no doubt, he and his conf^^lres were 
 often refused at first, yet by degrees it got to be recog- 
 nized ; first, that these claims were customary and not 
 novel ; secondly, that in some cases they must be granted ; 
 and ultimately, that it was the rule to grant them rather 
 than to refuse them. In this way grew up all the extra al- 
 lowances, which now confuse and complicate our Codes to 
 the disgust and mortification of individuals who can never 
 be sure of what they are entitled to, and who naturally 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 take a favourable view of their own claims; and to the 
 serious loss and hindrance of Government, who never 
 know quite what claims may be made upon them, and who 
 are frequently compelled by pressure, public or private, 
 to grant allowances which are not really deserved. From 
 their very nature these allowances were somewhat unde- 
 fined, unfixed in amount, often a matter of favour and 
 interest, and always the subject of dispute and uncertainty. 
 They possessed none of the qualities which belong to 
 permanent salaries, such as fixity of tenure and duration, 
 precise definition of amount and right, and facility of 
 calculation and determination. They were always more 
 or less make-shifts and temporary expedients for those 
 increases of salary which were always postponed, but were 
 always becoming more and more necessary with the 
 increasing complexity of Government and the increasing 
 demands on each individual officer. 
 
 When our present Financial Codes were first formed 
 in 1872, though it is only 14 years ago, it was thought 
 enough to codify and systematise the existing rules, and 
 since then other rules have been added to the Codes as 
 the occasion for enunciating them arose. But the time 
 has now come, we think, not for systematising or even 
 for correcting old rules, but for abolishing them altogether ; 
 and travelling allowances and all other extra and special 
 allowances should, like acting allowances, be abolished 
 in toto as sepm^ate allowances, being merged, wherever 
 necessary, into the consolidated salary of the appointment. 
 Travelling allowances could, like acting allowances, be 
 calculated on the system of averages, and could be added 
 on to the consolidated salary as a permanent addition. 
 Thus in the case we used as an illustration above — the 
 Collectorship of Allahabad — the consolidated pay of the 
 appointment, both acting and permanent, was found by 
 averages to be Rs. 2,100 a month. If it were found 
 that over a period of five or ten years the average 
 travelling allowance, including the cartage of tents paid 
 to the Collector of Allahabad, was Rs. 1 50 a month, the 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 consolidated pay of the appointment (whether acting or 
 permanent, and including all travelling allowances) would 
 be fixed at Rs. 2,250 a month, and this sum would be 
 invariably drawn each month, whether the holder was 
 junior or senior, acting or permanent, and whether he 
 travelled or not. The same process could be applied to 
 local, personal, and other extra allowances ; and it would 
 introduce an amount of certainty and cornfort in the 
 dealings between Government and its servants, for which 
 it would be worth paying a large sum ; whereas in reality 
 it will cost neither party anything, but will save Govern- 
 ment large sums in clerical labour, and its servants much 
 loss of time and temper. The main argument, it should 
 be repeated, is, that all extra or special allowances are 
 excrescences arising out of temporary bye-gone emer- 
 gencies, and requiring to be abolished by consolidation 
 in the permanent pay as soon as possible ; that the ordi- 
 nary permanent pay which an official receives from 
 Government should include all , remuneration of every 
 kind which he is entitled to receive, and that our Pay 
 and Leave Codes should at once be revised with the 
 object of abolishing unnecessary restrictions on the tak- 
 ing of leave and useless complications in the rules for 
 extra allowances of all sorts. And enough, it may be 
 hoped, has been said on the subject to demonstrate that 
 the reform is one which deserves to occupy the early 
 and close attention of the Finance Committee. 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 (I V). — Pensions. Having dealt In previous chapters 
 with the questions of the leave rules, acting allowances, 
 and travelling allowances, we may now conclude with some 
 remarks on the present rules for pensions or retiring allow- 
 ances. These are so various in the different branches 
 of the civil administration that it is necessary to treat each 
 branch separately, and the present chapter must be 
 confined to the pension rules for the Covenanted Civil 
 Service. Now the present system of pensions in the 
 Covenanted Service is an ingenious system for rewarding 
 demerit ; for the officer who has served the shortest time 
 and occupied the least distinguished posts obtains the 
 highest pension, while he who has risen to the highest 
 positions and has rendered Government the longest 
 and best service obtains the least pension. The sys- 
 tem has been well described by a late Governor of 
 Madras (Sir W. Denlson), who says : — '* In the col- 
 onies a man who has served Government faithfully 
 
 is entitled to claim a pension, the ratio borne by 
 
 which to the pay of the office from which he re- 
 tires increases regularly with the length of his ser- 
 vice In India, however, it would appear that the 
 
 longer an officer serves the Government and the more 
 important the duties which he is called upon to perform, 
 the less claim is he considered to have to any acknow- 
 ledgment of his services ; he may indeed have paid the 
 Government several thousand rupees beyond the value 
 of the pension which he will receive. This state of 
 things would seem to call at once for revision and amend- 
 ment." These words were written in 1862, but revision 
 and amendment would seem to be still as far off as ever. 
 
 The result so graphically depicted by Sir W. Denl- 
 son is brought about in the following manner. The 
 officer contributes four per cent, of his salary towards his 
 
( 25 ) 
 
 pension from the day that he reaches India to the day 
 he resigns the service, and to the total of these contri- 
 butions the Government adds enough (after compound 
 interest and lapses to the fund have been allowed for) 
 to bring up the total sum to ^i,ooo a year. It follows, 
 therefore, that the larger the contributions of the indi- 
 vidual the smaller is the proportion of the ^i,ooo which 
 has to be provided by Government. The full pension is 
 obtainable after 25 years' total service, of which 21 years 
 must be actual residence in India and four years may 
 be furlough. An officer who does not rise, say, above 
 a district judgeship, and who retires at the end of 25 
 years, will have drawn about four lakhs of rupees as his 
 total salary, and his contributions at four per cent, will 
 amount to Rs. 16,000 without compound interest. A 
 distinguished officer who rises to a post of Rs. 4,000 a 
 month and remains 30 years in the service will have 
 drawn about seven and half lakhs of rupees as total salary, 
 and his contributions for pension at four per cent, will 
 amount to Rs. 30,000 without interest. He will, there- 
 fore, be compelled to pay to Government Rs. 14,000 more 
 (for the same pension) than his less distinguished confrere. 
 The injustice and impolicy of this system are obvious the 
 moment it is plainly stated ; and it is only wonderful that 
 such a system, which has no advantages and every 
 defect, should have been allowed to exist so long. It 
 has now to be seen whether a better cannot be suggested. 
 It was found by a Parliamentary inquiry in 1862, 
 that in average cases the payment of the total annuity 
 of ;^i,ooo was divided among the different contributors 
 in the following proportions, and there is no reason to 
 believe that the proportion has been seriously disturbed 
 in the last 20 years : — 
 
 £' 
 
 Subscriber's own payments ... 250 
 
 From Civil Fund lapses by death, &c. ... 139 
 
 Paid by Government ... 611 
 
 Total ... 1,000 
 
( 26 ) 
 
 These figures might well be taken as a guide for 
 fixing the pensions of Civilians on a permanent basis, 
 instead of leaving them to vary with the haps and chances 
 of the service, under a scheme ingeniously contrived 
 to reward mediocrity and punish merit. The average 
 sum now paid by Government Is the ;^6i i, which It 
 pays directly, plus some of the ^139 derived from lapses, 
 favourable rates of interest, &c. As it would be very 
 difficult, if not Impossible, to decide what proportion of 
 this ^139 is really paid by Government and what by 
 the subscriber, it would probably be reasonable to share 
 it equally and estimate the Government proportion at 
 one-half, viz., £6g. This added to the ^611 which 
 Government already pay, would give a fixed pension of 
 ^680 a year to be paid by Government, or, say, ;^7oo 
 in round numbers. There Is little doubt that every one 
 would be willing to accept this fixed pension on being 
 freed from all contributions to a pension fund ; for at 
 present not only is the subscriber mulcted of contribu- 
 tions to the very end of his service, but if he happens 
 to die before he retires, he gets absolutely nothing In 
 return for the large amount so contributed, which would, 
 if invested in a life assurance, have produced a handsome 
 annuity for his wife or children. Starting then with the 
 assumption that ^700 a year is the normal pension to be 
 given by Government to a Civilian after 25 years' service 
 and 21 years' residence, we can soon work out what the 
 smaller pensions to be given for shorter terms of service 
 (on medical certificate) ought to be, and what increase 
 in the pensions (If such be allowed) for longer terms of 
 service or residence should be given in order to maintain 
 the same proportion. And It may be added that the 
 pensions should be graduated according to the amount 
 of actual residence or service in India, and not according 
 to the /^/^/ amount of service including furlough, as the 
 former Is the best test of the value of the services render- 
 ed to Government. If then we take £"]00 a year as 
 the normal pension for 2 1 years' actual residence, we find 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 that it falls at the rate of ^334 a year for each year of 
 residence ; and, after 1 5 years* residence has been 
 completed, pensions should be given at this rate, pro- 
 vided the necessity for retirement was proved by a 
 medical certificate. The first pension obtainable without 
 a medical certificate would be the full one of £yoo 
 at 2 1 years' residence ; and after that they might in- 
 crease by the same rate {/^33}^ a year) up to ^800 
 for 24 years' actual residence, but only to approved 
 officers who might be selected by the Government of 
 India as having rendered good service : other officers 
 would have to retire at the end of 21 years' actual 
 residence on a pension of ^700 a year. Approved 
 officers might go on serving till 24 years' actual resi- 
 dence on an increasing pension up to ^800 a year, and 
 after that they might serve on, if permitted by the Gov- 
 ernment of India, till 30 years' actual residence or 35 
 years ' total service (as at present), but they would get 
 no increase to their pension after 24 years' actual resi- 
 dence. The line is drawn at that point because it is 
 only exceptional men perhaps who are really at their 
 best after that time, and therefore no one should be 
 tempted to stay on beyond it by an increasing pension, 
 although power may well be given to the Government 
 of India to allow an exceptionally vigorous or efficient 
 officer to stay on till 30 years' actual residence. We 
 have lately had some cases where extensions of service 
 have been granted out of consideration for individuals 
 who had previously done undoubtedly good service, but 
 who were then worn out and effete. Such extensions 
 should be most jealously watched, if they are not abso- 
 lutely prohibited, for they are generally contrary to the 
 true interests of Government, and often inflict serious 
 injury on those whose promotion is stopped. 
 
 If these proposals were carried out, the Indian Civi- 
 lian, instead of earning only a fluctuating pension varying 
 in the inverse ratio of the length and merit of his services, 
 would be entitled to a fixed pension, gradually increasing 
 
( 28 ) 
 
 from 15 to 24 years' actual residence, though any abuse 
 would be guarded against by the provision that the pen- 
 sions below 21 years' residence would only be given on 
 medical certificate, and that the increased pensions above 
 21 years' residence would be granted only to selected 
 officers. In the English Civil Service pensions are given 
 at so many sixtieths of a man's pay because he is supposed 
 to retire at the age of 60, although he can stay on tiL 65, 
 if pronounced fit. Thus, if a man has rendered 30 years' 
 service he obtains f J of his average pay of the last five 
 years, i.e., half pay ; but if he has put in only 25 years' 
 service, he draws only H or ^ of his pay as pension. 
 It is necessary, in a service like the English, where 
 salaries vary from the tide-waiter on ^50 a year to the 
 Prime Minister on ^5,000, to proportion the pensions 
 to the salaries received ; but in a service like the Indian 
 Civil Service, where the duties performed by the mem- 
 bers are all of one class and only differ in degree, while 
 their retiring salaries vary in the immense majority of 
 cases only between ^2, 500 and :;^4,ooo a year, it would 
 not seem to be necessary to make the pensions vary with 
 the ultimate salaries reached. A variable scale of pen- 
 sions is an evil in itself, and should only be permitted 
 where the salaries differ in amount so greatly that they 
 must be taken into consideration. This is the case in the 
 English Civil Service and in the Uncovenanted Service 
 out here ; but in the Indian Civil Service no such reason 
 exists, and we are persuaded that a graduated scale of 
 fixed pensions, such as has been advocated above, is what 
 is really required for this service, and that its introduction 
 would remove a large amount of discontent, which is 
 now felt as the obvious injustice of the existing rules. 
 
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