however
17
18
no allowance of any description is given the officer to
offset this increase in prices.
9.
The other Departments we have mentioned have
advantages over us in many other respects than the one of
salary. When their day's work is finished they can go
home confident that they will not be called on until they
start work the following morning. They also have their
week-ends entirely free, and they get a generous annual
local leave. We unmarried Lance-Sergeants on the other
hand cannot leave the Station when we have finished our
work without the permission of the Officer in Charge, who
can give us permission to do so only when one third of the
European personnel is still remaining in Station. Such
leave from Station expires at 10 p.m. if we are on duty
at any time during the night, or is extended to 1 a.m.
provided that we are not on duty before 7 a.m. Anyone
absent without permission from Station, or anyone not
returning before the expiration of his leave, is put on
the report and severely punished. We do not get week-ends
free, but on three days in the month the Officer in Charge
can grant us 24 hours' leave from Station, which must be
taken on the days that he directs. An annual local leave
is of no use to us for the simple reason that we have not
got the money to avail ourselves of it.
The quarters provided for those other Depart-
ments are much superior to most of those given to us, and
in many cases, they are given a rent allowance and permitted
to live wherever they wish. Of our quarters we can only
say that Police officers from both Shanghai and Singapore
visiting Hong Kong, and seeing some of the quarters provided
for the Hong Kong Police, have expressed amazement that we
are expected to live under such conditions. We can well
understand their amazement as many of us have seen the