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the shipping interests of the Colony, all of which, to be
equitable and just, require that an officer appointed to this
Department must have had a wide and varied professional train-
ing, which cannot be acquired until he attains a relatively
advanced age. This question of age is perhaps the best
criterion of the time necessary to obtain the required
knowledge, and we would point out that the average age of
recruitment in our Department for those at present on the
staff is 33.3 years, while the average of the four recently
apointed surveyors, Messrs. Church, Garland, Jones and
Hilton is 34.1 years. It is of interest to note that in
response to an advertisement of the Crown Agents for candidates for this Department, appearing in "Engineering"
of March, 1928, where the age limits were given as 27 and
40 years, we understand that for three vacancies, only two ·
men could be found with the necessary qualifications and
those were men of 34 and 36 years of age. For comparative
purposes we would c: 11 attention to the average age at
appointment of the present Engineers in the Public Works
Department which is 28 years, and that several of them were
actually recruited at the early age of 22. Despite, however,
the disparities of age indicated above, our commencing
sularies are now on the same basis as those of Asistent
Engineers in the Public Works Department, and in respect of salaries and pensions we stand at a great disadvantage,
when compared with them, through the longer qualifying
period of professional experience required by us, involving the loss of at least 5 years service for salary increments
and pension.
We admit that sclaries with in the service
can never be expected to equal those held by professional
colleagues in civil life, but are of the opinion that in
this Colony where appointments are held in comercial
circles under, in many cases, as favourable conditions as