8
(1) To begin with we must assume I think that X in the
If instead of telegram means what it says.
"240 per annum" the Governor had meant" an amount
obtained by converting £240 into dollars at X
shillings to the dollar" he would have said so
specifying X.
(2) I don't see anything to quarrel with over
the Governor's proposals for making allowance
cost of for the "lag in the rise of the local
living". But as the arrangements he proposes
are necessarily arbitrary I would make their actual imposition subject to review at the
appropriate stages in the light of circumstances
at the time.
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(3) But the main feature of these proposals is that
they provide for two distinct scales of levy -
one for dollar paid officers, and another for
Entiraly sterling-paid officers. This is no a distinc-
tion between the lower-paid and the higher-paid
staff, because, although the dollar-paid officers
are for the most part subordinate Chinese, many
of them on salaries of less than 1000 dollars
a year, they include some officers who
7,500 dollars (Chinese Medical Officers); and
although the sterling paid officers are for the
most part senior Europeans, they include some
officers who are on comparatively low rates of pay e.g. Nursing Sisters (£200- -£250) Prison Warders (£190-£330) Nor is it a distinction
between European and non-European,
can reach
since some
Europeans