94
X
These difficulher have not been found insuperable elsewhere.
Kel.
resident in England should continue to be quoted
in sterling and paid in sterling while an officer
is on leave in England or other country having
a gold standard. It seems to us that this is
essential, not only with a view to attracting
recruits for the various branches of the service,
but also for the purpose of computing pensions,
especially in cases where an officer has served
in other Colonies before transfer to Hong Kong".
They explained that it had been found necessary
in 1920, with the rapid fall in the value of the
dollar which took place shortly after the 1919
decision,to depart from the simple 2/- rate
which had been approved in that year, and to
X
rarying from $10=21 when the manket adopt a sliding scale of fictitious rates for
to
$12=11
104 1
the dollar conversion of sterling salaries locally, which
was at or our 4/4" moved up or down with the market exchange rate
when the market rate was at or
under 23/64
New paragraph
of the dollar with sterling. In 1928 the burden
of the exchange continued to weigh upon officers
with European domiciles who had to remit money
home for their dependants or the education of
their children, and a further improvement of the
dollar equivalent of their sterling salaries was
approved in favour of that class of officer.
The 1929 Commission resulted in a general improve-
ment of salaries, both sterling and dollar, and
the restoration of the 1919 system of payment of
sterling salaries at the rate of 2/- = $1, or at
less the market rate, if that were
than 2/-. It
was also part of their scheme that a cost of
living allowance at the rate of 15% for married
officers (and half that rate for unmarried
officers) should also be paid, but this was not
adopted. The history of salaries in Hong Kong
shows