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of officers would seek to resign on reaching the age of 45. For one thing, the new salary scales are more attractive than formerly: and for another, promotion prospects will be materially enhanced if the power to enforce early retirement is seriously used. Nor have I any reason to suppose that senior officers in the Hong Kong service, now that the Salaries Commission has relieved their immediate financial anxieties, are anxious to go on pension before the normal time.
10. During a discussion in Executive Council at which there was unanimous agreement in favour of the proposal to take power to compel retirement at 45 and to permit the officer to claim retirement at the same age, the feeling of all members was that the Salaries Commission suggestion in paragraph 163 of the report that officers wishing to avail themselves of early retirement should give three years' notice of their intention was both harsh and unnecessary. Both my advisers and myself felt that the needs of the case would be met if a provision were inserted that retirement at the age of 45 should be permitted on an officer giving one year's notice and that Government should have the right to terminate an officer's service at 45 similarly on one year's notice. As a safeguard, I would be in favour of submitting all cases of compulsory retirement under the new powers to the Governor in Council in the first instance and then to you for final approval, except in the case of non- gazetted officers in the disciplinary forces such as the Police, Prison, Fire Brigade and Revenue Departments.
11. Non-gazetted Police Officers are already permitted to retire voluntarily at 45 without any special formality under the present Police pension regulations and your predecessor in his despatch No.312 of 14th August, 1939, approved the recommendation that all subordinate officers of the Prisons Department should also be allowed to retire at 45. It is considered that all subordinate disciplined staff should similarly be permitted to retire at 45, the other classes of officers affected being Fire Brigade officers and Revenue Officers. In this connection I would invite your attention to Sir Mark Young's confidential despatch of 18th August, 1946, wherein he recommended that the retirement age of the Fire Brigade staff should be the same as that of the Police Force. It is considered that in the case of disciplined staff my approval only would be adequate to permit them to retire voluntarily at 45 and the Governor in Council's approval only in the case of compulsory retirement at 45.
12. In all the dircumstances and arter due consideration I recommend the adoption of the proposal of retirement at 45 on the conditions stated for an experimental period of five years in the first instance. I understand that you have approved a similar experiment in West Africa. I would be grateful for an early answer to this submission as the public service will remain to some extent unsettled until a decision has been reached on paragraph 163 of the Salaries Commission report.