:
No42 CONFIDENTIAL.
423%.
PRINTED
FOR USE
EASTERN 132
HI
COLONIAL
My Lord,
OFFICE
RES
い
6174
REL 4 EB 20
GOVERNMENT HOUSE.
356
HONGKONG. 11th December, 1919.
With reference to Your Lordship's
telegram
of 18th July and to the connected correspondence, I have the
་
honour to submit my recommendations with regard to the re-
-vision of the emoluments of the members of the Public Service
of Hongkong.
2.
Before considering the details of the salaries to be attached to individual posts or classes, I pro- -pose to place before Your Lordship my views on certain principles of general application. The first of these is that of the currency in which salaries should be expressed. For many years past the question of salaries in this Colony has been complicated by the endeavour to find some arrangement by
which officers who are accustomed to think in terms of sterling
could have assigned to them a salary which, while payable in
the local currency, should be capable of expression as a definite sum in sterling especially for the purposes of leave and pension. During the twenty years over which my personal acquaintance with the matter extends a number of methods have
been tried. Salaries have been fixed in dollars with an
artificial rate of exchange for leave and pension purposes; exchange compensation has been paid first on the half and then on the whole of an officer's salary; salaries have been fired in sterling and converted at the current rate of exchange;
RIGHT HONOURABLE
VISCOUNT MILNER, G.C .B.,
&o..
ko...
later
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