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seems advisable that there should be a permanent Board of Examiners, in order to ensure uniformity in the standard of knowledge for which certificates will be issued, as well as to guarantee to the student a similarity in the style of examination to which he will be subjected.
On my part, I may perhaps be permitted to urge upon the Executive Government the great expediency of making the study of Chinese a branch of considerable advantage to the Service. This course is adopted with the happiest results in India, and I feel satisfied that an analogous arrangement in this Colony would in a few years prove of much benefit to public interests.
The gratuity or allowance to an officer who passed the final examination would, I presume, be granted on production of the Certificate of the Examining Board, and while that Board would incur grave responsibility in connection with the issue of these documents, I conceive that there cannot be any danger to be contemplated from that.