Chambers,
537 Supreme Court House, Hongkong,
26th. February, 1907.
Sir,
On behalf of the signatories to the memorials which were forwarded to Your Excellency in October last year, I have the honour to express a hope that we may hear shortly that the memorials have been forwarded to the Right Honourable the Secretary of State.
The continued high rate of the dollar, the continued depreciation of salaries consequent thereon, have tended to increase the financial strain to which civil servants are subjected. During the 4 months which have elapsed since the memorials were drafted there has been no indication that the hope which the Secretary of State expressed that prices would adjust themselves to the prevailing high rate of the dollar has any prospect of being realised, and the opinion of the financial men in the Colony is I believe that there is no prospect of such expectation ever being realised.
So far as those who are paid in sterling are concerned, the salaries as expressed in gold are merely nominal, being reduced by over 25 per cent. They have little doubt that the Secretary of State will take the memorials into his most serious consideration, and while dealing in a generous spirit with the losses already incurred, will take steps to restore the salaries to the amount in silver to which it was originally intended the sterling should be equivalent.
To His Excellency
Sir Matthew Nathan, K.C.M.G.