Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

THE PENSION FUND 521$4,000 per annum. No officer could become eligible for apension until he had completed ten years' service.As originally announced the maximum pension was$2,500, but when the rules were finally settled and promulgated,this had been increased to $2,800. Officers over the age offifty on June 1, 1894, the date on which the fund started, werenot permitted to retire, unless incapacitated, until theyreached the age of sixty-five. Other officers had the optionof retiring at sixty, or of remaining in active service untilthey reached the age of sixty-five. Almost the whole of theactive staff was admitted at the outset by resolution of theBoard of Directors, but on September 27, 1895, it wasannounced that thereafter all officers must pass a medicalexamination before being admitted at the age of twenty-five,and that if they were unable to pass they would probably beobliged to hand in their resignations. The calculations ofthe actuary had been made on a five per cent, interest basis,and it was arranged that the moneys of the fund should atfirst remain on deposit with the bank and bear interest at thisrate. It was contemplated that later on, when the fund hadgrown to larger proportions, this arrangement would beterminated and possibly a distinct corporation formed tohold and administer it.At the outset the bank's contributionswere estimated to provide forty-one per cent, of the fund,transfers from the Guarantee Fund thirty-two per cent, andpayments from officers twenty-seven per cent., so that itseemed quite proper that full control should be vested in thebank. Great care had been taken to provide a scientificbasis for the fund, to ensure its being able to carry out itsundertakings. So many similar funds in other institutionshad proved unequal to the task of meeting their obligations,that in justice to all concerned this was insisted on as ofvital importance.On the amalgamation of the Bank of British Columbia inJanuary, 1901, and of the Halifax Banking Company in May,1903, the members of the staff of these banks were admitted