disagreeable duty of suppressing piracy, the whole responsibility for which is thrown on the Inspectors.
11. Your Petitioners would respectfully remind Your Excellency that when this onerous duty was thrown upon the shoulders of the Captain Superintendent and of the Registrar General, each of these officers received a special extra allowance of £250 per annum for the performance of this special duty.
12. Your Petitioners have had their pay and allowances diminished, if anything, rather than increased since 1873, extra pay allowed at outstations for the work of the Harbour Master's Department having been diminished because the whole sum available (£501) is now divided between four stations instead of three.
13. Your Petitioners' pay is not as good now as it was in 1873 for another reason. Rates of Exchange have fallen considerably, and the purchasing value of the Dollars is not now what it was then.
14. Your Petitioners would further submit for Your Excellency's consideration that promotion is very slow; that an Inspector may serve his whole time in the 3rd or lowest class, without any chance of promotion, and this without any fault of his own; that there is no increase of pay for length of service, no matter how prolonged that service may be, and further that in the matter of his Pension, he is placed at a serious disadvantage as being...