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imports will of course be/restricted as soon as goods from Britain are available. For this reason imports from Canada and U.S.A. have had to be sanctioned for the time being on a more generous scale than would normally be justified.
12.
Up to 30th November, $1,109,931 has been collected in Revenue, mainly from duties on liquor and tobacco, entertainment tax, sale of stamps, and various licences. Rates and Crown Rents will be collected in a modified form as from January 1st, 1946.
13.
The total expenditure for the period under review is $32,952,643 though this figure does not yet reflect the large sums due in respect of requisitions by the Services.
14.
With effect from 13th October there has been a steady fall in food prices, which has now spread to other commodities. This gratifying tendency has been materially assisted by the strength of the Hong Kong dollar as against Chinese National Currency. The general fall in prices thus, to some extent, represents a tangible dividend from the confidence established for the local dollar.
15.
The subsidy on rice with a view to maintaining the price at 20 cents a catty continues, and from 26th September to 30th November has amounted to over seven million dollars. The position is kept under close review: to date the expenditure is considered justified on the grounds that it is cheaper than the labour trouble and the wholesale relief it has thus far warded off.
SALARIES.
16.
1941 rates of pay, even with the addition of H.C.L. and Rehabilitation Allowance, continue to give rise to many complaints. These are generally based upon the inadequacy of the allowances to meet current living costs, heavy capital expenditure involved in replacing clothing and household equipment lost, looted or sold during the occupation, dissatisfaction with the 1941 scales themselves and apparent anomalies created by the salaries paid to the temporary employees who have been called in at short notice to fill pressing vacancies.
17.
A general revision of salary scales, directed in particular at the substitution of through scales for the excessive number of classes and promotion bars, as already approved in the case of the recruitment of new Police Inspectors in London, is clearly desirable, and will involve considerable re-adjustment of existing allowances and pensions.
18.
It would be impracticable, however, to attempt to consider such a revision until living costs have been stabilised and it is unlikely that sufficient staff could be made available for so considerable an undertaking until civil government is re-established. In the mean- time preparatory work is in hand and an announcement, setting out the Administration's intentions in general terms, is being considered for submission to the Colonial Office.