136
130
5 per cent. on salaries up to Rs.1,200, 7 per cent. on salaries up to Rs.2,400 and 10 per cent. on salaries above Rs.2,400. Provi- sion should be made so that the salary of an officer in any of these successive grades is not reduced below what he would have received if he had been on the maximum of the immediately lower grade. The actual points at which the successive percentages will begin to operate are suggestions only, and I am prepared to leave to your discretion the fixing of the actual steps in the gradation, and I should have no objection to the raising of the limits at which the higher rates operate. For your information in Seychelles 10 per cent. levy only operates above Rs.5,000. Please report by telegram the scale adopted, and instruct Crown Agents as regards leave salaries.
With this amendment I approve immediate application of general reduction of salary on conditions already indicated except that new proposal obviates necessity of total exemption of any salary. Levy will not, of course, apply to officers in receipt of salaries reduced on basis of Commissioners' proposals. I agree that it should apply to the Police.--CUNLIFFE-LISTER.
C. 93921/32 [No. 18].
No. 43.
Telegram from the Governor of Mauritius to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
(Received 3.47 p.m., 29th January, 1932.)
[Answered by No. 45.]
29th January. No. 20. Confidential. After examination of the effect of the proposed levy on subordinate posts it is proposed to adopt the following graduated scale viz., 21 per cent, on salaries up to Rs.780, 5 per cent. up to 1,680, 7 per cent. up to 2,400, and 10 per cent, above that figure. Total reduction would equal approximately Rs.380,000 in full year as compared with Rs.292,000 from cut proposed by Commission exclusive of railways in both
cases.
I suggest that the present rate of levy be treated as temporary pending reorganization on the lines proposed by the Commission. No special exemptions need then be made and no reference to Herchenroder scale will be necessary until Commission's scheme is available. Introduction of this limitation at this stage will cause misunderstanding. The only cases affected by this omission will be Inspector-General of Police and Poor Law Commissioner(s) and their exemption from temporary levy applicable to their officers would be invidious and not justifiable on general grounds. This arrangement would be without prejudice to subsequent reorganization.
C. 93921/32 [No. 17].
131
No. 44.
Despatch from the Governor of Mauritius to the Secretary of State
for the Colonies.
(Received 1st February, 1932.)
(Very Confidential.)
SIR,
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
MAURITIUS,
26th December, 1931.
As it is necessary owing to the remoteness and isolation of Mauritius that a large part of the arrangements arising out of the report of Financial Commission should be settled by telegraph I think it may be well that I should endeavour to submit a general appreciation of the present situation in the Colony as it presents itself to me in the hope that it may be of assistance in facilitating telegraphic consultation and may perhaps help to explain views submitted by telegraph which may otherwise be difficult to appre- ciate. The completion of the sugar crop and the opening of a new year seem to afford an appropriate occasion for such a review.
2. The damage done by the March cyclone to the sugar crop has unhappily exceeded all expectations. The Bureau of the Chamber of Agriculture immediately after the storm estimated the damage at 30 per cent. on a crop of 250,000 tons, an estimate which, if correct, would have produced a crop of 175,000 tons. The statistician of the Department of Agriculture took a less pessi- mistic view and in a forecast submitted at the end of May esti- mated the cyclone damage at 56,000 tons on a crop of 245,000 tons, giving an anticipated yield of 189,000 tons. The preliminary Report on the results of the crop submitted by the Department of Agriculture at the end of November shows an actual output of 104,000 tons; this figure may be taken as very nearly accurate. It indicates a loss of 86,000 tons on the pre-cyclone forecast of 250,000 tons estimated by the Chamber of Agriculture. The statis- tician of the Department has now propounded a somewhat less favourable estimate of what the crop ** would have been if there had been no cyclone owing to unfavourable weather in July. This argument is scarcely worth pursuing.
There was unques- tionably every promise of an exceptionally heavy crop before the cyclone; the appearance of the fields excited universal comment, and the prospects of a very large crop played a considerable part
$1
* Cmd, 4034.
PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
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