1
4
on the high and strict principles required in the case of pri-
vate trustees.
That the revenue will suffer some very slight
loss, spread over a number of years in the future, is irrelevant,
especially as the Government has had ample opportunity, by con-
version into sterling, of guarding it against any loss. There
seems little doubt that if the fund had been a private trust,
an appropriate part of the accumulations would have been conver-
ted by the trustees into sterling at a favourable rate, seeing
that the prospective liabilities were partly in sterling. The
current rate at the time when the last of the dollar contribu-
tors now concerned ceased to contribute on a dollar basis was,
as it happens, 4/10.
21
7. Besides being embodied in the financial resolution of
the 7th August 1902, the 3/- rate also received indirect legis-
lative recognition in section 29 of the 1908 Ordinance, which
treated as equivalent a dollar pension of $1500 and a sterling
pension of £225. Under this section the contributing officer
was compellable to make contributions providing a pension under
the Ordinance up to the limits of these sums. Evidently the
legislature at this time regarded a pension of $1500, or £225.
per annum as a sufficient provision to be aimed at for an
officer's widow. It is clear that the sufficiency of the dollar
pension depended upon the maintenance of the 3/- rate of exchange.
At an exchange rate of 1/3 this pension becomes £93.15.0. per
annum.
8. Upon our retirement we were, in accordance with the
Ordinance, given the option of having our future contributions
calculated either on our pensions or on our former pay. Pro-
bably most of us elected to continue to contribute on pay, but
we might have elected to contribute on pension.
Contribution
on pension, involving a decrement, would have meant the reduction
of our registered widows' pensions. If we had so elected, we
should have done so in the belief that the dollar pensions
would be paid at 3/-, and we should now be finding that we had
altered our position for the worse in partial reliance on a
representation which the Government is now secking to withdraw.