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the dollar at 1/-, 16% of his salary; as the dollar decrcases, so
the percentage cut in the sterling equivalent of the dollars he
reccivos increases. The Government, Sir, does not consider it
fair that onc section only of the community should bear such a
disproportionate share of the burden of balancing the budget.
The example set by Government has not been gencrally followed
by the business firms of the Colony. Certain mercantile houses
have found it necessary to reduce salaries, but the sc are not
firms which should be taken as a barometer for the adjustment
of Government salaries. Other large business firms, so
far as the Government is aware, have not found it necessary
to curtail to any appreciable extent the dollar equivalents
of their sterling salaries. The Government, subject to certain
amondnc nts, accepted the recommendations of the Salaries Commissi on
as putting the sterling paid officers in their proper relation
to other sterling paid employees in the Colony, and that relation
becomes disorganized if the Government servants are made to
suffer, in the dollar equivalents of the salaries, a reduction
which has not been inflicted on those with whose sterling
salarics their own were correlated. In this connection the
following quotation from paragraph 569 of the recent report of
the Committee on National Expenditure presented to Parliament
in Julyllast is of interest :-
"If in view of the present economic position it were
"possible to arrange that all classes of the Community
"should suffer an all round reduction of income, whether
"derived from carnings, in order to bring costs of
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production down to a lower level, or investments, WO
should