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respectfully urge that such hygienic conditions affect
equally all ranks of the service and that if there are just grounds for improving the financial position of cadet officers
such grounds must hold good also for the medical staff of
the Colony.
It is well known however that Hongkong is not popular as a sphere of official medical service, owing to the excess- ive cost of living, the great distance from home which
enances the cost of passages for officers and their fami-
lias, and the absence of any material prospects of promotion,
and as evidence of this fact we would venture to remind you
that some years ago a former Secretary of State directed
that any vacancy occurring in the medical staff at Hongkong
was to be offered in the first instance to the members of
the medical staff in the Straits Settlements and the Feder-
ated Malay States, but in no instance has any such officer
desired transfer to Hongkong. This is no doubt due to the
fact that medical officers in the Straits Settlements have
the opportunity of ultimately obtaining appointments such as
that of Senior Medical Officer to the General Hospital
Singapore with a salary of £780 to £900; Senior Medical
Officer with duty pay of S1200 in addition to the salary of
£600 to £720; Government Pathologist with a salary of £600
to £800;
or Principal of the Medical School, with a salary
of 2600 to £800. There are also greater facilities for
consulting practice, and in some places for general private
practice, in the Straits Settlements and Malay States than
in Kongkong, where in fact such practice is prohibited
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