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fundamental as those you propose can be based simply on comparison which has not itself been fully articulated with any particular past year. Because of the variety of factors which go to make up the emoluments both of Governors and of the general Public Service in any particular dependency, we do not see that the averaging of these has any significance. In fact in 1953 as in any other single year investigation would no doubt show that some Governors were specially fortunate or lived in very high cost territories where constant entertainment was required and others less fortunate perhaps represen- ted: grant aided territories whose salaries generally required improvement. So far as the Public Services were concerned, a survey would also no doubt show that some might recently have been increased, others were just waiting an increase and others because of general economic conditions had little or no prospect of an increase. Again we question whether averaging over such a diversity of circumstances is significant.
6. We are also concerned at the level of some of the Governors' salaries produced by your proposals. We think that the very high tax-free salaries paid to the Governors of Hong Kong, Bermuda and the Bahamas are justifiable in the light of the high cost of living there and the entertainment demands made on the Governors. These factors do not apply, however, in say Fiji, British Honduras and the Western Pacific. In these circumstances we would find it very difficult to support the tax-free salaries for these posts that emerge from your formula. These Governors are appointed by the Queen on advice of British Ministers and they are pensionable by H.M.G. We think that this means that some account must be taken of the general incomes and taxation policy of H.M.G. in fixing their emoluments. In this context there can be few people in the U.K. with net incomes in the £8,000 to £10,000 per annum bracket. The tax-free salaries produced by your formula seem too high for these posts.
7. Paragraph 15 of the draft proposes that virtually all the increases should be met by H.M.G. Whether or not you contemplate that these extra payments should fall on a 0.0. Vote or on the O.D.M. Vote, they would represent an important departure of principle with implications both on the current salaries paid locally and for any future increases. You do not consider what effect your proposals would have on the local scene. You know for instance that in Fiji our proposals of a much more modest scale to pay wholly from U.K. funds increases to designated staff led to something of a crisle in our relations with the Fiji Government. The consequences of a proposal now for almost a doubling of the Governor's salary, even at U.K. expense, might well seem much out of line both with our own general economic thinking and with the Fiji approach to such matters. Furthermore, whereas Governors in the past might well perhaps complain that (like the most senior U.K. Civil Servants) their salaries tended to be carried upwards only on the backs of increases granted to junior staff, your proposals would be likely to reverse this position and to suck local salaries up towards these high net Governors' emoluments.
8.
You are already aware that some of these proposed salaries
/would
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