and receives half the absent officer's initial pay during the nine months that he is on half pay leave. In the case of subordinate officers, however, his duties are performed departmentally no officer having to work overtime and the half pay lapses to the Treasury. Hence an additional condition would have to be that if an acting officer is appointed or extra pay granted to officers performing extra duties, then the total amount of such payments must not exceed three months half pay of the absent officer instead of nine months. This means that practically no acting pay could be granted. If no acting pay were granted, the increase over the estimates would only amount to £135 per annum, a small amount.
11. From the figures in para. 7 every 1 per cent, of officers' salaries amounts to £204 annually. One month's full pay in every six years amounts to £2×3 annually. Hence if the acting officers are to receive the nine months half pay, the necessary additional contri- bution from officers to balance this would be 32 per cent of their salaries.
HONGKONG.
No. 223.
II.
DOWNING STREET, HONGKONG, 10th August, 1910.
S-I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 201 of the 9th of June in which you submitted proposals for assisting certain subordinate officers of the Civil Service of Hongkong to take leave in Europe by providing them with passages at regular intervals.
2. i sympathize cordially with the object which you have in view and if the Legislative Council approve the scheme with the modification which I am about to suggest, I shall have much pleasure in giving my assent to it.
3. I have carefully considered the question whether it is desirable to adopt the sugges- tion that the officers concerned should be required to make a contribution towards the cost of the scheme but I am satisfied that the balance of advantage is in favour of dispensing with any such contribution. The amount involved is not very large and discontent is almost certain to be caused by any system which requires the payment of the same amount of contribution while the benefits to be received vary with individual cases.
4. In one point, however. I consider that the proposals are more liberal than is necessary, that is in the number of free passages which it is proposed to grant. If these officers are relieved from the necessity of saving money for the passages of themselves and their wives they should have no great difficulty ia providing passages for their families, especially if the Government will assist them by granting advances of salary for this
purpose.
I think that it would have been sufficient to give passages only for the officer and his wife but I am prepared to agree to the grant of 24 passages as a maximum.
5. I have consulted Sir F. LUGARD on the subject and he agrees in the views which I have expressed in this despatch. I have therefore to request that you will now place the matter before the Legislative Council. If, as I hope will be the case, the Council agrees to these proposals, the subordinate officers now in the service should be invited to accept the scheme, which should be made compulsory for all such officers appointed in future. In view of the proposal to dispense with any contributions from the officers affected, it will not be necessary that the adoption of the scheme should be made contingent upon its being accepted by all existing officers, but it seems improbable that anyone would hesitate to accept it.
6. I should be glad if you would inform me as soon as possible whether the Legislative Council have approved the proposal.
In that event, it is desirable that the scheme should be embodied in a printed paper, shewing exactly the classes of officers to which it is applicable. I should be glad to receive a number of copies of such a paper in order that they may be distributed to officers who are hereafter selected for appointment.
I have, etc.,
The Officer Administering the Government of
CREWE.
HONGKONG.