Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE PENSION FUND 519is wrong. Sometimes he may be, but unfortunately theerror is more likely to be on the other side, and the result adeficit.Some interesting figures regarding the staff of the bankand its growth are given in this early correspondence with theactuary. At the end of 1891 it numbered 322, having increasedfrom 190 in 1877. The increase had been steady, except duringthe period from 1884 to 1886, during which a reduction tookplace. The average age of the members of the staff in November,1891, was 28.29 and the number of officers between theages of twenty and thirty was 150.The average salary was$974, and there were only six officers in the service receivingsalaries in excess of $4,000. These figures are given as indicatingthe extraordinary change which has taken place in livingconditions in Canada in a little over a quarter of a century.They also point to some of the difficulties which have beenencountered in the effort to maintain the Pension Fund on asatisfactory actuarial footing.The original plan fixed the maximum pension at $2,500,and contemplated a contribution from the bank of the verymodest sum, in the light of later years, of $5,000 per annum.It is obvious that in this case coming events did not cast theirshadows before. The Guarantee Fund accumulations wererelied on largely to cover the cost of admitting the olderofficers of the bank to the privileges of the Pension Fund.One of the benefits thought desirable, but which it wasnot found possible to provide, was the payment to the representativesof any officer at his death, whether on active serviceor on the retired list, of a gratuity equal to one year's pension.It was also proposed, after the death of an officer, to extendpart of his pension to his widow or minor children, but it wasnot until 1910 that provision could be made for this. It washoped to make retirement possible at the age of fifty-five, butthe actuary strongly pressed sixty-five as the earliest practicableage for which the desired benefits could be arranged. Ultimatelya compromise was reached, fixing the age at sixty, with