18
one,
accordance with a sliding scale determined by the average rate of exchange obtain- able for each month. This mode of adjustment of salaries is a fair and equitable and it is this concession your Petitioners pray might also be extended to them. 12. They believe that they are correct in stating that this concession was origin- ally granted (in 1894) to make up for the losses sustained by those officers who suffered by the fall in the value of the Dollar, particularly in the matter of remit-
tances.
ake
13. Since the 1st of January, 1902, the said Compensation has been granted to the above-mentioned officers, upon their whole Dollar salaries, which we thus raised by no less than 90 per cent., and this concession is enjoyed even by officers who are under no necessity to make remittances.
14. Your Petitioners respectfully beg leave to assert that their requirements do not materially differ from those of the officers privileged with the above-named Compensation, especially in the matter of living expenses and social obligations.
15. Your Petitioners, therefore, beg humbly to represent that, in equity, the principle involved cannot fairly be withheld from them, if due regard is had to the following among other considerations, namely:---
(a.) That Hongkong produces nothing.
(b.) That, whatever its future potentialities, it is not a manufacturing centre. With the exception of rope, cement, a small quantity of cotton, and its sugar refining industry, it manufactures no article of merchandize generally suitable to the wants of its inhabitants. (c.) That, consequently, every commodity, especially those indispensable to your Petitioners' requirements, is imported from Europe or America, where prices are measured on a gold basis.
(.) That the first cost of all articles that are needed by your Petitioners is increased by freight, insurance and other charges before they are landed here as their place of consumption.
(e.) That the prices of all importations from gold countries purchased in Hongkong are, in reality, fixed in sterling, although, for convenience. paid for in the currency of the Colony.
(A) That, in this manner, all payments by your Petitioners ultimately
resolve themselves upon a gold basis.
16. Under the aforementioned circunstances, your Petitioners submit that a distinction has clearly been introduced into the Service, whereby certain officers have been, and are being, fully compensated for the fall in the value of the dollar. while your Petitioners, who are also very seriously affected by that fall, are left without the least measure of relief, and they pray that equal consideration be meted out to the public servants of the Crown as a whole.
17. Finally your Petitioners desire to point out that their salaries, by reason of the fall in the gold value of the dollar, are wholly inadequate, and beg leave to state that they are justly entitled to contend that Government should compensate them to the full extent of the fall in the value of the metal in which their salaries are paid, and will graciously extend to them the same measure of relief already afforded to their brother officers in the Service, who, under the term of Exchange Compensation, now draw salaries nearly double those to which they are nominally entitled on a silver basis.
Your Petitioners, therefore, humbly pray that His Majesty's Government will extend to them the benefits of the system of Exchange Compensation as at pre- sent enjoyed by other Government Servants, or, in the alternative, will make such fit and proper provision either by payment of their salaries in sterling or other- wise as will prevent them from farther suffering from the continued decline in the value of the Colonial Currency.
And your Petitioners will, as in daty bound, ever pray, ete,
HONGKONG, #5. February, 1903.