CO882-(6-8) — Page 371

9

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TILUC.O. 882

8

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

8

medical departments, if salaries are increased in accordance with the report, "judicial fees for assault cases may fairly be abolished," but most of the saving thus effected is to be applied in increasing other salaries in the department.

If salaries are to be increased, it is at once equitable and the duty of those who are responsible for the administration and expenditure of the colony to criticise carefully the full emoluments of those whose pay is to be raised, and the Committee's report does not give much help in this respect, although it is precisely in such details that local knowledge may be most useful. I take the following illustration. According to the 1903 Blue Book, the Deputy Collector of Customs and Landing Surveyor at Colombo, being an officer in the 3rd class of the cadet service on a salary of Rs. 7,000 to Rs. 9,000 per annum, received the following emoluments in that year:

Salary Fees

ན.-

Supervising correspondence re crime, Colonial Secretary's Office Secretary, Plague Committee

making a total receipt in 1903 of Rs. 20,178.

***

Rs. 8,000; 8,973;

1,200 2,000 (annum;

per

There is very probably some explanation of these figures of which I am not aware, but if the officer received anything approximate to the above; if he is in a position in which, though his whole time like that of other officers is at the disposal of the Government, his spare time may be applied to such advantage, it is grotesque to make a permanent addition of 20 per cent. or 13 per cent. net to his salary side by side with that of an officer in the same class who has no emoluments and no opportunity of any over and above his salary.

It is perfectly true that Customs fees have formed the subject of separate and comparatively recent correspondence, but whatever decision was taken-and I do not review it now as I am only using the case by way of illustration-certainly did not contemplate a large addition to the salaries in the immediate future.

It may be added that, in revising the salaries of a service, not only fees but allow- ances of all kinds ought to be taken into calculation, if the revision is to be thorough and equitable.

17. The remarks made in paragraphs 3, 4 and 31 of the Committee's report require somewhat close comment. It will be remembered that the basis of the proposals outlined in my despatch of the 5th of February last was that, as exchange compensation had been in Hong Kong and the Malay Peninsula given on the whole instead of the half salaries in the case of those officers who were still to be paid on a dollar scale, so it should be doubled in Ceylon; and I have explained above in paragraph 11 of this despatch why the grant has meant less in Ceylon than in the far Eastern colonies, where the standard coin has been the dollar not the rupee.

In my previous despatch I stated my opinion that in the cadet service, as the number of Ceylonese is very small, "it would be best to incur the additional expenditure involved in allowing the local men in the grades usually filled by Englishmen to enjoy what it is proposed to grant to their European colleagues." Outside the cadet service suggested that "the salaries of all those grades which are usually filled by Europeans should also be raised by the grant of double exchange compensation. Those grades which are usually filled by Ceylonese should remain as before, since apparently no person at present serving in such posts is entitled to exchange compensation."

The

Exchange compensation is compensation for loss on exchange, and the theory or principle of the grant was that officers of European birth and domicile spend a larger proportion of their salaries in payments to Europe than do officers whose domicile is in Ceylon; that therefore in past years the former class suffered more than the latter from loss of exchange, and ought to receive special compensation in consequence. principle was laid down by the Secretary of State, and his ruling has been sought from time to time as to its practical application in particular cases, but it was for the local governments to safeguard the revenue against abuse of the privilege, if it was abused; and it was certainly never contemplated that the issue would be so confused and the principle so lost sight of that, in the words of the committee, "a very large number of Ceylonese, more especially in the Public Works, Survey, and Medical Departments

have been allowed the privilege, and that on the other hand many Ceylonese of apparently similar standing, e.., Inspectors of Police and Jailors, have been denied it." The committee state that in paragraph 31 of their report they endeavour to lay down a test which shall produce a result more in accordance with what we believe to be the Secretary of State's intention," and their solution is, while increasing by 20 per cent. the nominal salaries of officers in the Civil Service and in the European grades of other departments, and abolishing in their case the privilege of compensation, to double the present exchange compensation in the case of the salaries of other officers now drawing exchange compen- sation. I infer, though it is not stated clearly, that the committee would treat Ceylonese in the cadet service on the same footing as Europeans, as I suggested in my despatch. However this may be, the solution which the coinmittee suggest is that officers whose domicile is in Europe, and who for that very reason were granted exchange compensation, are to be given large increases, exchange compensation being in their case entirely dropped; while officers who ought never to have been given exchange compensation, because their domicile was not in Europe but in Ceylon, are to have their compensation doubled. The fact is that, while the committee are pleading for the same liberal treatment as has been accorded in the Malay Peninsula and Hong Kong, at the root of which was the question of exchange, and the remedy for which was doubling the exchange compensation, they have in their recommendations left out of sight this question of exchange, because as a matter of fact it has largely ceased to exist, and have produced a solution which is certainly liberal, but very illogical, and to my mind wanting in equity.

For, if the question of exchange entirely disappears, why is the line between European and Ceylonese to be kept up at all? The answer, European in Ceylon must incur certain expenses which the native of Ceylon need not. presume, is that the This is true, and I take it that the difference with the question of exchange eliminated- is not unfairly represented by the additional penny in the rupee which I proposed to give to European officers; while, on the assumption that the conditions in the Eastern colonies are 47

practically identical," and that similar treatment ought to be meted out to all, my proposal to simply carry out to its conclusion the principle of exchange com- pensation, just as it had been carried out in the other Eastern colonies, was at least intelligible.

18. The question of station allowances, or house allowances, whichever they are called, is a difficult one, and I should wish to be assured whether the following points have been considered. Are there not advantages in living in Colombo as against living in an out-station in the low country, social, medical, educational facilities which can be found only in the capital of the Colony, proximity to the port and to the railway, and so forth, which to some extent, if not wholly, counterbalance the additional cost of living? If these allowances are given, will there not be more discontent than before when married European officers are transferred from Colombo to stations other than those in the hills ? will there not be a demand for similar allowances at all stations, though varying in amount and possibly subject to periodical revision; and, if so, is it not worth considering whether (though I am not myself as at present advised in favour of this solution), if station allowances are given at Colombo, and if an expenditure on this account of Rs. 90,000 or even Rs. 45,000 is to be incurred, the relief sought for by the Government service as a whole might not be given mainly in this form? I would like to have an expression of opinion on these considerations, if it is desired to press the grunt of station allowances in Colombo.

19. There is one more special point which I wish to notice before coming to the main issue, and it has a very material bearing on that issue. A table is given in paragraph 21, page 4, of the Committee's Report, comparing the respective salaries of the classes of the cadet service in the Malay Peninsula and Ceylon; but it is obvious that a most important consideration is the comparative number of appointments in either service which have substantial salaries attached to them. To the contention that Government servants may rise to a particular post or two particular posts better paid than in a neighbouring colony, the constant answer is that there are only one or two appointments of the kind and, therefore, the large majority of the officers have no hope of obtaining the prize, and for them it is practically non-existent. The committee ro'nt to a first class in the Straits and Federated Malay States with salaries ranging from £1,200 to £1,500 per annum, against salaries as at present in Ceylon ranging from £991 to £1,275 or, if the proposals contained in my despatch were carried into effect, from £1,050 to £1,350); but they do not notice the fact that the number of appointments in the first class in

19638

B