COPY.
Sir,
Enclosure 1.
383
27205
SUT 9
General Post Office,
HongKong, 14th. August, 1899.
I desire to ask for authority, on the days of the
arrivals of British and French Contract packets from Europe,
to furnish a meal to the clerks in this Department..
2. If sanction is given $500 should be added to the
PE
estimates and, I submit, placed under that head Meals to clerks.
3. The arrivals of these packets mean 8 to 12 hours
work on the stretch with, in the General office, a not incon-
siderable amount of actual physical exertion.
and
4. The bulk of the clerks lige at long distances have
A
to get leave to go home to eat tiffin or dinner as the case
may be. It means a serious loss of time: an hour or an hour and
a half away, and a long walk in the sun or rain,is not conducive
to renewed energy.
40
5. Men on 20 to $60 a month have not servants to bring
them their food- relations might do so, probably pride precludes
The Honourable
The Colonial Secretary.
&c.
860.
&C.
that,