C.O
57706
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RECO
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE. Rrat 30 NOV 18
1. The points in favour of my contention that Widow's pensions in
England are payable at the rate of the day when exchange is over 3/- are as follows:-
Gou 76 45 44 straits
(a) In the Secretary of State's despatch No, 170 of the
27th. August, 1897, the grant of the 3/- rate at a time when the Dollar was much under that rate is referred to as an "Act of Grace" and in the resolution passed by the Legislative Council (which was based on the terme of the despatch) the words "the difference........being made
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(b)
.
good out of the revenue of the Colony" occur.
The fixing of the 3/- rate was not therefore in any sense a matter of bargain between the Government and the pensioners.
Again it cannot be contended that Ordinance No. 15 of 1908, (by which the Government took over the Fund) with- draw any of the privileges of the pensioners which had been granted by Ordinance No. 30 of 1890,
Now had Ordinance No. 15 of 1908 never been passed it is obvious that the pensioners would have been drawing their pensions at the rate of the day, supplemented up to the 3/- rate by Government out of revenue when neces- Bary. No one could justify the suggestion that they would have still continued to draw at 3/- and that the profit on exchange would have been paid into Revenue, when the rate of the day exceeded 3/-
I accordingly hold that the law morally (as well as literally) ordains the payments to be made at the rate of the day.
(c) Any argument based on reference to the circumstances of
officers on sterling salaries must be obviously irrelevant| when it is remembered that the Secretary of State's despatch was written in 1897, long before the existence
of