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I think the rates proposed by the Committee will do, but the Second Clerk in the Money Order Office (Mr. Moosa) might get $900 as a maximum as he does not draw any extra allowance for sorting.
The Committee recommend that the Staff of the Post Office should be strengthened by the addition of a few experienced sorters from home, and Mr. Lewis recommends that two such be obtained at salaries of $1,200 rising to $1,680 per annum. I have always been of opinion that the great weakness of the Post Office is the want c'trained subordinates in the General Office and for that reason I recommended, when the post of Chief Clerk recently became vacant, that it should be filled by a trained officer from England. A recommendation to that effect was made by Your Excellency but not approved by the Secretary of State. I am still of the same opinion. Portuguese Clerks are as a class careless, inaccurate, and inclined to idleness. The Department will never be thoroughly efficient till the Subordinate Staff is leavened with a few trained Englishinen.
I would point to the Gaol as an example of what the assistance of trained subordinate officers can effect. There is no comparison between the discipline and general management of prisoners maintained in the Gaol to-day, under the immediate supervision of the trained officers obtained some time ago from home, and the arrangements which obtained when the whole staff was recruited locally. The Gaol now will bear comparison with an English Prison. Formerly it certainly would not have done so.
Mr. Lewis is of opinion that the 4 clerks from India can be obtained at the rate of $480 to $840. He derives his information from an Indian Postal Official.
Harbour Office.
The increases to the first, second and third clerks recommended by the Committee are evidently based on the extraordinarily long service of the three officers.
The salaries as they stand seem to me to be sufficient (unless the Classifica- tion is adopted) and I would suggest that the increases recommended by the Committee to these three officers take, in these special cases, the form of personal allowances.
The Acting Harbour Master points out that the house allowances in the Department are inadequate. Unless all house allowances are to be revised through- out the Service I cannot recommend any alteration.
Education Department.
I consider the recommendations made in the case of the first assistant some- what too liberal. A salary of $1,200 per annum including house allowance seems sufficient.
Magistracy.
The salary of the first clerk should I think be at least $2,400.
I do not know why no recommendation has been made by the Committee in this case.
The salary of the fourth clerk should in my opinion be fixed at $660 rising to $840 by $60 biennially.
No recommendation was made by the Committee probably because Mr. Alli Bux had just been transferred to the Police Department.
The salary of the 5th clerk has recently been recommended to be fixed at $420 rising to $540 by $60 triennially,
Medical Department.
The salary of the Accountant and Storekeeper is made up as follows:-
Salary,
$1,140
Collecting Bills,
240
Keeping accounts for Venereal Ward....
60
1
Keeping accounts for Lunatic Asylum,
"
Keeping accounts for Hygeia,"
180
120
$1,740
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