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3.
I have to explain that the last mentioned scheme appears to me to be preferable to that of the Committee whose report was forwarded in your despatch under acknowledgment, because it appears to secure a better gradation of salaries, and avoids the inconvenient fractions which a general 30 per cent or 20 per cent increase would involve.
4. I take this opportunity of pointing out to you that in paragraph 16 of my despatch No.332 of the 23rd December 1898, I left it to your discretion to grant increases to the lower paid Chinese Officers who received no increases in 1890,
5. I gather that very few of the Chinese Officers referred to in that despatch did receive any increase of salary in 1890, and I had assumed that you would have generally adopted the increases proposed in Major General Black's despatch above referred to, but it appears that few, if any, increases