OP V.
Hon. Treasurer,
Enclosure 2.
C.O.
23705
420
Section 19 of the Ordinance provides that if there are 3 or less Orphans each shall receive only a portion of the wife's pension; but that if there are more than 3 the whole pension shall be equally divided among such Orphans, which means that where there are less than 4 orphans none of them can even get more than a portion of the wife's pension, but if there should be more than 3 the whole is to go to them equally. That is an unjust discrimination and the Secretary of State's instruction is that the wife's pension may be divided in the case when the number of orphans is 3 or less as it is when the number exceeds 3: i.e., may be divided equally between them.
The draft amending bill (S. 19) as settled by you and me seems to carry out that instruction and in no way to go beyond it.
The same thing may no doubt be effected by some other phraseology.
It seems to me that the concluding words of the Straits clause "shall be paid to such child or children to be equally divided between them if more than one" mean that if there be only one child such child takes the whole.
I think that on the true and equitable construction of that clause it should be held that the intention of the Straits Ordinance is that the children are to have the benefit of the wife's entire pension and that so long as there is a representative of the class orphan, no portion of that pension is to revert to the Pension Fund, alias the Colonial Exchequer, for there is no 'Fund' apart therefrom.
The intention is to me as clear as it is just, viz.: that as each orphan ceases to be entitled to draw pension, the surviving orphans are to get the benefit derivable from the fund for division between them being increased automatically until there remains no orphan entitled to pension when the monies constituting the fund will revert to the exchequer.