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MY LORD MARQUESS,-
DE VERE GARDENS, W.
31st May, 1895.
On the 30th October last, I had the honour to forward to your Lordship, from Hong Kong, a memorial praying that you would be pleased to fix the pension 1 would be entitled to in case I should retire in the course of this year.
2. In answer thereto I have been informed that your Lordship was of opinion that i was entitled to count my continuous service, but that you were unable to re-consider your decision that the dollar should be reckoned at the rate of 3s. 8d. instead of 45. 2d.
3. It was only on the 24th instant that I learnt that prior to the arrival of my Memorial of the 30th October, a decision had been given on this point. It appears that when I applied in April, 1894, for the payment of my half salary at the rate of 4s. 2d., Sir George O'Brien, in forwarding my letter included the question of pension as well, and although, no doubt the matter received due consideration, yet as I had not submitted the point, my reasons in support thereof were not before your Lordship, and it is possible that had my case been fully re; resented with all the facts a different conclusion might have been the result.
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4. On this account, and believing that I have further grounds in support of my application, I would respectfully ask a further consideration from your Lordship of this to me important matter, and would request, if it cannot be otherwise avoided, that before any adverse decision be arrived at, I may have an opportunity of personally and fully placing my case before your Lordship.
5. However convinced I might be of the strength and justice of my case, I would not so confidently urge it were it not that I am supported in my view by persons interested in the matter, and in responsible positions, thus, it was only after I had discussed the matter with Sir George O'Brien, who was then Administering the Government of Hong Kong, and on being assured that he would support my application, that I forwarded it, and I have been informed both privately and officially by His Excellency Sir William Robinson that he would recommend my application most favourably to your Lordship's consideration.
6. Fortified by these opinions and recommendations. I will now proceed to lay my further case before your Lordship. Firstly, I contend that the rule is, that after a certain number of years service an official otherwise entitled to a peusion is granted the two thirds of the pay of his office, and the rate that has obtained and been invariably followed in the case of Hong Kong officials is that the pension should be calculated and fixed at 4s. 2d. to the dollar, because that was the rate fixed by ordinance when the payment of salaries previously paid in sterling, was
henceforth to be effected in dollars.
7. Therefore, I respectfully and confidently submit that to this rate I am entitled unless there is some positive law or enactment, or express regulation which can be applied to me, depriving me of this rate, and that once it is admitted that I am entitled to a pension, I can, under the existing rules and regulations touching pensions, claim this rate as a right which I had been led to expect at the end of my career if I have been faithful and zealous in the discharge of my duties.
8. This being admitted, I submit there is no rule or enactment which in express terins deprives me of this right, nor can such a construction be put on any despatch. The revocation should be as clear and unequivocal as the right.
9. Lord Knutsford, in the first part of his despatch of the 19th June, 1890, announces his consent to grant an increase in the pay attached to certain offices in Hong Kong. His Lordship gives his reasons for this grant and directs how the increase in the various offices is to be calculated. He then proceeds to state that as this increase has been granted mainly on account of the enhanced cost of living in Hong Kong and loss of exchange, and that there had been no corresponding increase in England, he could not grant any proportionate increase in the half-pay or pension drawn in England, and after setting forth the rule which prevails in Ceylon and the Straits Settlements, His Lordship makes a calculation and decides that the holders of those offices, the pay of which has been increased by 14 or more should receive their half-pay and pension at 45. and 3s. 8d. respectively, because, he adds, 134 dollars at 3s. 8d. are worth a little more than 100 dollars at 4s. 2d.
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This I submit is the whole raisin d'etre of the change in the rate, or in other words the sole object of the change was to prevent the holder of an office, when drawing half-pay or pension in England, from obtaining increased pay or pension consequent on the increased number of dollars given to him in Hong Kong,
It was not intended nor was there any reason to reduce the half-pay or pension payable in respect of an office which had not received that increase of salary,
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