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spontaneously increased by the Shipping Companies,
that owing to the increased size of the shipping
now engaged in the trade and the larger number of
passengers carried in each vessel the task of in-
specting an emigrant ship is far more lengthy and
laborious than in former years,
w
the remuneration
on the old scale still assigned to the Emigration
Officer cannot be considered adequate to the labour
involved.
I observe from Regulation No.13 of the Ninth
Schedule of the Hongkong Ordinance of 1889, that
fees for the remuneration of the Emigration Officer
are fixed by one of His Majesty's Principal Secre-
taries of State, and I venture to suggest that the
fee of Twenty-five dollars now charged upon each
application for an Emmigration Certificate might,
in view of the circumstances detailed above, be in-
creased. I would also suggest that the Government
of the Straits Settlements may be requested to
create fees to be charged under the Straits Settle-
Settlements Immigration Ordinance of 1902 on a like
scale as that decided upon in respect of the Hong-
kong Ordinance, This step, together with the rais-
ing of the "overtime fee" at Swatow and Kiungchow
from Six dollars to Seven dollars and fifty cents
per hour and the levy at the latter port of a fee of
Twenty dollars for services performed on Sundays and
holidays, would create a uniform scale of Emigration
fees to be collected at these ports on both British
and foreign emigrant vessels.
ments