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be brought about that no question could arise as to the ability of the Colony to meet in full its obligations in that respect.
With this end in view Your Petitioners respectfully suggest that recruitment should be suspended except where this is
absolutely essential.
It is also suggested that in those cases in which it might be possible either to dispense entirely with an office or to replace the holder by an officer recruited either locally or elsewhere at a lower scale than that recommended by the Salaries Commission (as has recently been done in the case of Assistant Crown Solicitors) the holder of the office might, if he has served the 10 years necessary to qualify for pension, be permitted to retire on such pension as he may already have earned, notwith- standing that he may not yet have attained the normal age for
pensionability.
Your Petitioners respectfully submit that if, notwithstanding the representations made in this petition it is decided to adhere
to the system of payment lately adopted, officers who have already served for ten years should if they so desire be permitted to retire on pension earned whatever may be their ages in order that they may have the opportunity of seeking employment elsewhere without foregoing the fruits of their past service.
This course is understood to have been adopted in other Colonies and is one for which common justice would seem to call. 16. Your Petitioners desire most respectfully to submit that the
method of payment now adopted will operate with particular harsh-
ness in the case of those officers who served in His Majesty's Forces during the war and who, by reason of the advanced age at which they subsequently joined the service, cannot hope to earn pensions comparable with those of officers who joined the service before the war or of the younger generation of officers who joined after the war.
For such officers the date of retirement is rapidly approach- ing and with the new method of payment vanishes their hope of
making such savings as might help to eke out their meagre pensions.