Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

526 HISTORY OF THE BANKas they might think best. They appropriated it as thenucleus of a Widows' and Orphans' Fund, and during theintervening years by the accretion of interest, surpluses fromthe Officers' Life Insurance Scheme and certain other smallsums which became available from time to time, this fund hadgrown to about $6,000. The Officers' Life Insurance Schemehad been put into operation in May, 1894, at the same time asthe Pension Fund. The benefit provided was $1,000, payableon the death of any officer in the service. When a death tookplace, an assessment was made at the rate of $4 for each officerreceiving a salary of $1,000 or over, $3 for each officer receivingover $500 but under $1,000, and $2 for those in receipt of smallersalaries. The scheme was intended to embrace the whole staffhi active service, except such as had not been admitted to thePension Fund, but some opposition to it developing amongthe junior officers who had just entered the bank, arrangementswere made to exempt them, if desired, for one yearfrom the date of the confirmation of their appointments.A few years later this period of exemption was extended totwo or three years, as the officer might desire, and finally inApril, 1905, the Insurance Scheme was made to apply only toofficers in receipt of a salary of $300 or over, the usual commencingsalary at that time being $250 for junior officersaway from home, and $200 for those at home. As the staffof the bank grew in number, so did the amount produced bythese assessments, so that by 1904 each assessment producedabout $2,000 in place of $1,000 as at the beginning. In thisway the nucleus of a permanent fund was formed, and thefollowing year, partly because of the occurrence of severaldeaths within a short space of time, and the consequentnecessity for making assessments at short intervals, it hadbeen decided in future to make the assessments quarterly.Accordingly, in 1910, when it became evident that anincrease in the rate of assessment would be necessary to providefunds for the pensions of widows and orphans, it was feltif the assessment for the Life Insurance Scheme werethat,