227
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
6
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
Enclosure 3 in No. 133.
The sterling salary scheme provides for 6 first-class Overseers and 13 second- class in the Public Works Department.
There are 1 Clerk of Works and 23 Overseers provided for on 1903 estimates and 1 Clerk of Works and 1 Overseer have been sanctioned in addition in C.O.D. 70 of 1903 - 2 Clerks of Works and 24 Overseers.
In the estimates for 1904, there will be 2 Clerks of Works, 12 first-class Overseers and 12 second-class Overseers, made up as follows:-
Clerks of Works.
1 Clerk of Works, £330 (p. 61 of 1903 estimates).
1 Clerk of Works, £300 (C.O.D. 70 of 1903).
2
First-class Overseers, £210-£250
1 Building Ordinance Overseer (new appointment in place of Mr. Crisp) £210 to
£250.
2 Building Ordinance Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), £210 to £250.
1 Waterworks Overseer (C.O.D. 287/1902), £210 to £250.
1 Overseer (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,800+ exchange compensation
1 Telephones Overseer (C.O.D. 287/1902), £210 to £250.
2 Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,680 + exchange compensation 2 Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,500 + exchange compensation *2 Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,440 + exchange compensation
(and free quarters).
12
£270.
£252.
-
£225.
£216
Second-class Overseers, £160-£200.
3 Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,440 + exchange compensation 14 Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,200 + exchange compensation
about £100. 2 Overseers (p. 60 of 1903 estimates), $1,200, only
£216.
£180.
--
i Overseer (p. 61 of 1903 estimates) - £180.
r Overseer (p. 61 of 1903 estimates) = £150.
1 Overseer (C.O.D. 70 of 1903) £160.
เล
12
=
* These two men are provided with permanent free quarters (value, say, £30). † Two of these men are provided with permanent free quarters (value, say, £25).
NOTE.-First-class and second-class Overseers who are provided with permanent free quarters will be liable respectively to a deduction of £30 and £25 per annum from their salaries.
Four of the second-class Overseers are drawing $1,200 a year only, as they are at present engaged on a purely temporary basis.
1
19218
SIR,
(No. 241.)
No. 134.
HONG KONG.
MR. CHAMBERLAIN to GOVERNOR SIR H. A. BLAKE,
Downing Street, June 25, 1903.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch, No. 204, of the 17th April last, submitting certain alterations which it is proposed to make in the scheme of Sterling Salaries for Hong Kong.
2. You propose to add to the Scheme the post of cashier in the Treasury, as
a non-clerical appointment, and to remove from the Scheme the posts of Accountant
and Superintendent of the Registration Branch of the Post Office.
3. As the dollar salaries of these latter posts exceed $1,200 a year, the question
of retaining them in the Scheme turns on the point whether the duties attached to them are of a distinctively clerical character. The same question arises in con- nection with the appointment of cashiers in the Treasury.
4. In the latter case you state that Mr. Carvalho's successor "would, it is to be presumed, be a local clerk." This does not, of itself, entirely dispose of the question. In the Straits Settlements, as you will gather from the enclosed correspondence,t
Governor, Straits, No. 454, Oct. 23, 1901.
the principle has been admitted of includ- To Governor, Straits, No. 373, Dec. 5, 1901. ing in the Sterling Scheme certain "prize
appointments which, though ordinarily reserved for specially qualified members of the clerical service, were not regarded as belonging to that service, nor as being clerical in character. I do not know whether this is to any extent the position of the Hong Kong appointments referred to, and I should be glad to learn more exactly the nature of the duties assigned to them, and the manner in which it has been customary to fill up vacancies occurring in them, i.e., whether they have been regarded as ordinary clerical posts, to be filled by the selection of qualified clerks, or as open to a wider range of selection..
5. I note that you propose to retain in the Scheme the posts of Superintendent of the Money Order Office, Chief Clerks in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Post Offices, First Clerk to the Magistracy, and other posts which would seem to be of a clerical character, at any rate equally with the posts of Accountant and Superintendent of the Registration Branch. I should be glad to know on what grounds this difference of treatment is based.
6. I should be glad if you would consider, in conjunction with your legal advisers how far it could be argued that Government, having included the posts of Accountant and Superintendent of the Registration Branch, Post Office, in the published Sterling Scheme, has virtually promised to existing holders of those posts the sterling salaries entered for them in the Scheme, on the published conditions, and is legally or equitably bound to grant these sterling rates to the existing officers, if they apply for them. Mr. Reed has done so, as I learn from your despatch." Pending the final decision on this point, he might be informed that I have received his application for exchange compensation, which was forwarded in your despatch, No. 224, of the 24th April; but that I regret that I am not prepared to admit the validity of his claim to this privilege.
7. I understand from the second enclosure to your despatch, No. 254, of the 18th ultimo, that the Chief Clerks in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Post Offices have not elected to come under the Sterling Scheme, so that there will be no difficulty in removing those posts from the Scheme, if it is decided that they are not posts to which Sterling Salaries should properly be attached. But as Mr. Melbourne has accepted sterling terms, the post of First Clerk to the Magistracy can only be re- moved from the Scheme on the occurrence of a vacancy; and the same rule would apply to the Chief Clerkship in the Colonial Secretary's Office. But you will, of course, understand that in the event of these or any other posts being ultimately removed from the Sterling Scheme, it will not be possible hereafter to maké allow- ance for the special cases of any Europeans who may happen to be appointed to them by attaching sterling salaries to them.
No. 133.
† Nos. 39 and 43.
‡ Not printed.
228
8. Subject to the observations contained in a despatch in which I am replying to your despatch, No. 211, of the 22nd April,* I agree to the rates proposed for the Chinese Medical Officer, New Territory, and the House Surgeon, Tung Wah Hospital. I would also suggest that the salary of the Laboratory Assistant in the Bacteriologi- cal Department should be assimilated to those of the Chinese Medical Officers generally. I understand that the present Assistant has passed through the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, and that the post will usually be held by a Chinese possessing similar qualifications; and if the salaries were placed on a level, as I suggest, an occasional interchange might be possible, which would very probably be advantageous both to the Medical and to the Bacteriological Department.
9. I am prepared to agree to the rate of salary proposed for the post of District Master (2nd Grade) in the Education Department; but recent experience in obtain- ing Schoolmasters for the Straits Settlements leads me to doubt whether Mr. Irving is justified in his forecast of the possibility of obtaining elementary schoolmasters from this country on this scale of pay.
10. I see no objection to the proposal put forward in paragraph 3 of your despatch in regard to the rearrangement of the staff of Overseers in the Public Works Department. I also approve of the removal of the post of Probationer in the Medical Department from the Sterling Scheme.
1
11. I approve of the proposals contained in paragraph 6 of your despatch, t relative to Messrs. Carpenter and Haggard.
I have, &c.,
J. CHAMBERLAIN.
• Not printed.
† No. 133.