CID. L.P.
Finance.
you
104
se rates
4.2.38
Submits certain questions for a suling
of exchange
2
The question at issue is whether officers
recruited locally who joined the Hong Kong Service
before the 31st December, 1902, are entitled to
=
payment of their pensions at the privileged rate of
exchange of $1 3/8 if they live outside Hong Kong.
This privilege no longer affects officers of the
grades normally recruited in this country since they
are all paid sterling salaries, and there is no
question of disturbing the established rates of
retired officers of these grades who have been in
receipt of dollar salaries and are entitled to
pension on the basis of the privileged rates.
It appears that the officers concerned
[now obsolete] claim these privileged rates by virtue of the General
Orders quoted in paragraph 2 of the despatch, which
state that officers not on sterling salaries draw
pensions in England and apparently elsewnere outsiue
Hong Kong)
(a) at the rate of $1
the 1st July, 1897,
3/8 if appointed before
(b) at the rate of $1 3/- if appointed before
the 31st December, 1902.
These General Orders lapsed at the time of
the 192% revision, and were replaced by General Order
154.
Officers now draw pension at the current rate
of exchange (at the moment about $1
=
1/2).
The question of whether the previous General
Orders can be taken as creating inalienable rights is
not one on which I feel competent to give an opinion,
but the Governor is advised that the officers
concerned nave no right to payment at the privileged
rates of exchange.
There is no question of the fixed
rates