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It is a remarkable coincidence that the arrangements of this new Retirement Scheme have specially benefited the two naval officers who are known to have been officially consulted by Mr. Childers in its preparation. Just sufficient Admirals were retired to give Sir Sydney Dacres his promotion to that rank, and the private secretary to the First Lord is now one of the junior Rear-admirals.
Sir John Hay is far from thinking that he has been more hardly treated than his brother officers, who have been similarly injured by a retrospective law.
He may have felt more acutely the disappointment which in the ordinary course of nature he, as the youngest of the sufferers on the flag list, may have longest to bear.
He may be unable to persuade himself that the very sweeping and unexpected measure of compulsory retirement, which has been extended so as to include him, was not specially introduced, so as to oblige a political opponent to make his election between a forced retirement from the ranks of parliamentary opposition, or from his profession; and that such an alternative was proposed to him he thinks is shown in the foregoing correspondence; but apart from these considerations he believes this new retirement scheme, so far as it is restrospectively compulsory, to be a breach of faith on the part of the Government most prejudicial as a precedent to the interests of the Naval service, and he therefore deems it to be his duty to bring the facts of the case and their consequences to the knowledge of the public.
LONDON: PRINTED BY EDWARD STANFORD, 6 AND 1, CHARING CROSS, S.W.
