one of compensating an officer for having to serve in
u
a particular locality. The principle upon which the
new system would be based would be that of compensating
34
an officer for premature loss of career if, and only i? he suffers such loss by reason of ill-health. This principle is capable of application to all colonies; it avoids the complicated questions which would arise if the increase is
related to climatic influences, and substitutes for then
the simple rule that some increase should invariably be granted in cases of retirement for ill-health, and that . once the general scale of addition is settled the amount
of the addition in any particular case should be determined solely by the extent to which the officer's ill-health has deprived him of the prospect of completing & normal career in the public service. In practice the addition would vary with the length of the officer's service, an
officer invalided at an early stage in his career receiving
a larger addition than an officer invalided at a later
stage. It would be possible, if necessary, to have
rarying reales of addition in different dependencies, bu:
if the common pension constant is adopted, there would seem
to be little justification for a departure from uniformity
in the scale of additions on retirement for medical reasons.
Carried to its logical conclusion this
system would postulate the disappearance of the provision
which is now universally found in the pension systems of
all the Colonies and of the United Kingdom, under which an officer invalided before completing a fixed period of service (normally ten years) receives a gratuity and
not a pension, zince if regard is had solely to the loss
prospects of a career in the public service which is occasioned
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