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17. The new method will, furthermore, strike hardly those officers who have sterling commitments by way of family remittances
or insurance premiums.
These officers will receive the balance of their sterling
salaries after deduction of the levy at the purely artificial rate of $1 = 1 shilling and six pence, but such monies as they
#
whereby they
must remit can only be remitted at the current rate of exchange,
which is $1 = 1 shilling and threepence half-penny
will lose 2 d. on every dollar remitted.
Thus an officer who needs to send to England £30 per month will lose on exchange in relation to each transaction $64.50. Any further fall in the dollar below 1/3 will naturally increase
this loss.
18. Your Petitioners venture to point out that the levy on their salaries together with the fixing of an artificial rate of exchange for the payment thereof amounts to discriminatory taxation of one
small section of the community in the interests of the remaining
sections many of which are better able to bear taxation. Government
has not seen fit to explain to Your Petitioners the financial position alleged to require these cuts in their emoluments or in
any way to take them into its confidence. They are compelled to
silence while they see themselves mulcted in order to spare more
vocal sections of the community.
19. In conclusion Your Petitioners humbly pray that due consid- eration may be given to the matters set forth in this their
Petition and that their full salaries may be paid in dollars taken
at their true relation to sterling.
And Your Petitioners will ever pray, etc.
Jebruary, 1936,
VICTORIA, HONG KONG.
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