2
£28
present granted to Officers of ; frequently combining vacation leave with half pay leave.
There are two reasons, why I think Her Majesty's Government should at least bear the subject in mind. The first and perhaps the principal reason is the injurious and often fatal effect on Civil Officers themselves, and the depreciating effect thereby on the work done by them - in consequence of their injudiciously neglecting to avail themselves of their vacation leave at the time when it would most benefit them.
The tendency to hoard it, as it were, out before therefor only after so they may con with a view to adding to the amount of their emolument and the length of their half pay leave at a more convenient period is very general. On the other hand, I maintain it to be most useful to use vacation leave frequently, at least in this climate, which by no means is a bad one, provided the opportunity of occasionally breaking a residence here be afforded and availed of. At least that is my experience, and I shall always believe that if I could have absented myself from duty for two or three months in 1869, I would have escaped the protracted and nearly fatal...