The federal pension system cannot be considered settled. A man may be superannuated at any time, but by custom, not law, he retires at the full age of sixty. While in service he pays a superannuation allowance of two and a half per cent, on his salary for thirty-five years; after that, no more. If he is superannuated after ten years’ service, say, he gets one-fiftieth of his salary for each year. If he is not in fault in any way, Government may add ten years more to his service, so as to give him a larger allowance. If a man serves the full term of thirty-five years he gets thirty-five fiftieths of his salary in pension. This pension system, recognized as essential to a good civil service, has this weakness: A man pays two and a half per cent, of his salary for twenty years. If the salary is $3000, his payments would have amounted to $1200, with interest, in that time. If he then dies, his widow gets only two months’ salary as a solatium; all the rest is lost to her, and goes to the superannuation fund of the treasury. Or, a man is superannuated after thirty-five years; he has paid perhaps $2100, with interest; he draws, say, one year’s superannuative allowance, and then dies. His family get nothing at all, not even the two months’ salary they would have had if he had died in service. This is illogical and unjust. If the two and a half per cent, had been put into a life policy, the insurance being undertaken by the Government, a decent sum would have been realized at death. A civil service is also established in the provinces. That in Quebec is better organized than the federal; the Government adds to the pension fund one-fourth of that retained from the salaries, and half pensions are extended to widows and children. It will be seen that this pension is an essential part of the civil service system, and the method of it is at once a sort of insurance and a stimulation to faithful service. Good service is a constant inducement to retention, to promotion, and to increase of pension. The Canadians say that the systems work well both in the federal and provincial services, and in this respect, as well as in the matter of responsible government, they think their government superior to ours.