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Hutchison'
refer Your Lordship to paragraph 3 of Mr.
29 June Memorandum dated the 23rd. July, 1908, a copy of which was
enclosed in my Confidential Despatch of the 2nd. July, 1908,
and to inform Your Lordship that I considered in Executive
Council on the 7th. ultimo the question of what compensat-
-ion, if any, should be granted to the keepers of the Opium
Divens for the loss of their business, and decided upon the
advice of a majority of the Council that the compensation
given should be one-third of the corrected capital of the
divan-keepers in question, i.e. a total sum of $16,747.27.
This compensation is now being paid to the divan-keepers
by the Registrar-General.
6.
I regret to inform Your Lordship
in this connection that a mistake was made in the amount
of compensation paid to the keepers of the 26 Opium
Divans which were closed in March, 1909. In their case I
was advised by the Executive Council that each divan-keeper
should be paid as compensation a sum equal to one-third of
his corrected capital plus 5 per centum of such capital
for disturbance without feir notice, i.e. a total sim of
$3,237.32. The Treasurer was instructed to calculate the
compensation so payable and owing to a clerical error in
his Department the compensation was reckoned as 138
1383
per
centum