Mr Came
Mr Comple
M.
Acheson.
89
I should be glad S
Sj
Jom
view.
Lowell
31-7
E. 79. p.42.
do p. 54.
It has been suggested that the present need
to review the level of salaries of the Public Service
in Hong Kong should be utilised to propose to the
Governor that all salaries should be expressed in
Hong Kong dollars, instead of the present dual system
under which the salaries of posts which are normally filled by recruitment from England are expressed in
filled by local recintment sterling, while those of subordinate offices
offices/ar
are
expressed in dollars.
Until 1903 salaries in Malaya and Hong Kong
were expressed in dollars both the Straits and Hong
Kong currencies being at that time simple silver
currencies; and it was not until 1906 that the Straits
dollar was fixed in terms of sterling.
As a result of complaints from the Service
in Malaya in 1900, regarding the inadequacy of their
salaries, Sir Frank Swettenham, the then High Commis-
sioner for the Malay States, advised the Secretary of State (Mr. Chamberlain) that he had years before
recommended very strongly that all salaries of
Europeans in the native States should be expressed in
sterling, and that even now the best and safest policy
would be to put the salaries in sterling, abolish the
fictitious high rates of sterling exchange which had
grown to be payable in respect of leave and pension,
and to pay leave salaries and pensions upon the actual
sterling salaries drawn. He later said (page 54)
"From every point of view it seems clear unless the
officers of this Service are to receive their salaries
in silver only" (i.e. expressed in dollars) "that
while resident in the Colony or on leave in England
or elsewhere, or after retirement on pension, they
should