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the tram line is $30: this at 1/8 is in sterling £2.10s. at 2/23 it is £3 68. 3d.: or to take so domestic a matter as the price of coals (as important an item in housekeeping as it is in England) the coolie hire alone for carrying up a ton of coals to the Peak is $4-this, at 1/8, is in sterling 6s. 8d., at 2/2 is 8s. 10d.
The wages of a Chinese Boy less than 10 years ago was $12 a month: at the rate of exchange then ruling, this represented in sterling at 2/-, £1.48. The wages now are $16 a month, or at 2/24, £1.158.4d.
All other wages have risen in proportion.
Further, the tendency in every item in which the Chinese are concerned is to rise in price irrespective of the value of the dollar. The Chinese servants are perpetually struggling for an advance of wages, and in the too frequent case of change of servants it is only with the greatest difficulty that new servants can be engaged at the rate paid to their predecessors. Wages are an important item being roughly not less than $100 a month, including 4 chair coolies, for all classes of officers. There can be little doubt that the smaller items alluded to above together make a monthly total equivalent in amount to the rent.
7. The statements which we have made as to the cost of living will we are confident be borne out by the Unofficial Members of the Council, and also by any of the numerous old residents of Hongkong now in England, should the Secretary of State be pleased to consult them.
8. The Secretary of State has pointed out that in the matter of remittances the Civil Servants are no longer affected by the rate of exchange. This is undoubtedly true; but on the other hand we would point out, first, that there are many officers who are permanent residents of the Colony, whose remittances home are necessarily far more limited than those whose home is in England and secondly, that with regard to all officers. the large reduction in salaries has considerably reduced the amount available for remittances: or, to take the converse case, where the amount remitted is, as it often must be, a constant quantity, the amount available for living in the Colony is in its turn constantly diminishing.
9. In urging the Secretary of State to re-consider his decision we greatly rely on the action which the Colonial Office has sanctioned in the past to redress similar hardships. On four separate occasions owing to the fluctuation of the dollar the Secretary of State has sanctioned the grant of relief by the Government to its officers. The change from silver to sterling was made with a similar object in view. We submit with respect and confidence that in doing this the Secretary of State has recognised that it is the duty of a Government to mitigate the hardships caused by the uncertain course of exchange, and to do what it can to eliminate the element of uncertainty from its officers' salaries, which is so prejudicial from every point of view. The hardship from which civil servants are now suffering is as acute as on any previous occasion when measures of redress have been adopted. But it differs in its nature from that which existed on the previous occasions in one important particular, and, owing to the facts which have been dwelt on in the preceding paragraphs, needs, we submit, different treatment.
The consequences of a fall in the value of the currency may be in part redressed by the grant of family remittances at its assumed normal value: it may also be partially redressed by exchange compensation based on the principle of bringing the dollar back to this value. But neither of these remedies is fitted to meet satisfactorily the converse case of a hardship created by a rise in the value of the currency. The case has this special feature that measures of relief occasion no extra cost to the Colony, for the annual estimates are necessarily based on the lowest probable rate of exchange, and the rise in the dollar saves the Colony so much on the Estimates, and this moreover at a time when the Government is profiting by the higher rate in respect of remittances to England.
We submit that salaries must bear some definite relation to the cost of living in the Colony in which they are paid, and that they should not be subject to fluctuation :—in the same way pensions to officers in a gold country should be paid in gold, or they also will be subject to fluctuation. What the proper system of payment of salaries to civil servants should be in order to satisfy these two essential conditions, it is not for us at the present moment to suggest, but we submit that the defects in the existing system which the recent fluctuations in silver have revealed are so serious that they can only be met satisfactorily by a revision of the scheme of salaries,