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one of the posts to which Cadet Officers had a preferential claim. In the Hong Kong Civil Service List for 1911 (p. 191) it is still included as one of those to which Cadet Officers have such claim, subject to a reference to the Police Proba- tioner Scheme (pp. 138 to 141): and I find it stated (p. 141) that some of the posts to which Police Probationers are eligible "will not be exclusively confined to officers origin- ally appointed as Probationers." This has always been under- stood to mean, that although the Police Probationer Scheme (which was instituted in 1903) cancelled the preferential claims of Cadet Officers appointed after that date to the posts of Captain Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent of Police, there would be no inter- ference with the claims of Cadet Officers who had been ap-
pointed before 1903. The first intimation to Cadet Officers in
this service that they are to be excluded from the posts of
Deputy and Assistant Superintendent is contained in your
despatches written during the Spring of this year, the effect
of which (as I am informed) is to disapprove of my appointment
as Deputy Superintendent of Police when Captain Lyons retires,
on the ground that such appointment is exclusively reserved
for officers originally appointed as Police Probationers. I am
also informed that you propose to appoint Mr.P.P.J.Wodehouse
to this post: and if this is so, I beg to point out that
Mr.Wodehouse is not a Police Probationer, but that he was
originally appointed to the Hong Kong Civil Servica es e
Student Interpretar in June 1897, and was not attached to the
Police Force of the Colony until 15th March 1901; whereas I
was appointed as Assistant Superintendent on 29th December 1900 (that is, three months after passing my final examination
in Chinese) end had been connected with Police work as an
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