:
276
increase in expenditure of not less than £120,000 per annum ex-
-clusive of the Police.
281
3.
4.
I have also since my arrival received an
application from the Superior Officers in the Service asking that •
their claims to an increase of salary may receive consideration.
I have made enquiry from the largest employers!
of labour in the Colony and I am informed that they have not granted a general increase of salaries to their European or
Chinese subordinates during the past 2 years. This fact coupled
with the necessity for economy in the present state of the
Colony's finances and in view of the insecurity of the revenue
from the Opium Monopoly, have induced me to come to the conclusion that I cannot recommend to you a general increase of salaries.
5.
In connection with the suggestions for such
increase, a revision of the sterling salaries scheme for subordin- -ate posts was proposed to me. The existing sterling salaries scheme for such posts grew out of a conversion of unsystematized
dollar salaries into sterling salaries. An attempt to grant in- -creases in salaries by general revision of the scheme is, in my opinion, unsatisfactory because in the endeavour to at ain uniform -ity many inequalities in increases must occur. In some cases
under the scheme submitted to me there would be no increases at
all. In others they would be small. In some they would be sub-
-stantial.
6.
7.
I propose therefore to deal separately with such of the applications for increases of salaries as I am able to ask you to consider. I have already dealt with the case of the Survey Staff and I shall address you separately in other cases.
In this Despatch I desire to represent to you
that dissatisfaction with existing salaries is largely due to the high rate of exchange which has supervened upon an undoubted
increase in the cost of living an increase which secus to be
world wide and in rents of houses. The influx of large numbers
of
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