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DRAFT.
Shown this sexy bay hours kom in order to solitur. rather shews that his Lordship thought the increases permissible, notwithstanding; a certain scepticism on his part as to the alleged grievance about house rent. There is not sufficient information before me to enable me to form a final and unhesitating opinion as to whether at the present time rents have fallen or not in comparison with 1889, but I would point out that
"What the ten official Members ought to have done shortly ere quitting the Colony is that the rents of 1893 stand in comparison with those of 1875, which was notoriously a period of depression in the real-property market.
10. Certain observations made by Sir G. des Voeux, in 1891, as to the power of the Legislative Council to revise and reduce salaries in future from year to year, appears to be relied on in the Memorial. Their application appears not free from ambiguity, but whatever may have been their scope and intention, they were not adopted by my predecessor, and are not binding on Her Majesty's Govt. To act on them or rather on the interpretations assigned to them would be to treat the remuneration of civil servants on a [principle] which appears to me objectionable, namely...
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