The Secretary to the Treasury has forwarded for advice a file of papers relating to a debt due from A.B. to C.D.E. in respect of which the Brisbane District Court has entered judgment against B. for £81 10s Od with £8 18s 9d costs.

It appears from the file that B. is eligible to receive a war gratuity to the amount of £91 14s 6d. The payment appears, however, to have been deferred and B. cannot now be traced.

The Secretary to the Treasury therefore requests advice as to whether the Treasury would be legally justified in paying, from the amount of the war gratuity payable to B., the amount of the debt due to E.

In my opinion the Treasury would not be legally justified in making such a payment. Such a payment would, in my opinion, amount to a deduction from a war gratuity payable under the Act. But the only provisions in the Act for deductions are those contained in section 7, which clearly does not apply to the present case; and there appears to be no other provision in the Act under which the Treasury could make the payment. Section 16 of the Act and condition No. 5⁽¹⁾ under which War Gratuity Bonds are issued do not, in my opinion, give the Secretary to the Treasury power to consent to the alienation of any interest in a war gratuity by any person or authority other than the person to whom the war gratuity is paid or payable.

[Vol. 18. p. 226]

(1)The War Gratuity Regulations (S.R. 1920 No. 85) provided, in regulation I2, for conditions to be printed on the back of each War Gratuity Bond.

Condition 5, set out in Form No. 4 in the Schedule to the Regulations, read thus:

'Except with the consent in writing of the Secretary to the Treasury, no interest in this Bond shall be alienable, whether by way of or in consequence of sale, assignment, charge, execution, insolvency, or otherwise howsoever'.