CO882-(8-9) — Page 434

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

9

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

I do not, of course. suggest that it is necessary, or even reasonable, to pay a man when he first enters the service a salary which will enable him to support a wife, but I cannot regard any arrangement as fully satisfactory which does not make it possible for him to marry in due emirse that is when he is between 30 and 35 years old and is approaching the time when he will have completed the minimum period of service which qualities for pension.

follow that it is necessary to pay salaries -utficient for married men.

10. Marriage in the Malay Peninsula is a costly luxury, since it entails considerahte additions to expeu liture over and above the ordinary increases which it involves in every country. A bachelor can, as a rule, reduce his expenses on house-rent and servants by sharing a house with another man, and, in ordinary cases, not much is expected of him in The married man must have a house of his own: he must the way of entertaining. entertain, unless he is to drop out of the social life of the station-a result which for many reasons is undesirable: he must increase his staff of servants: he will probably have to provide a carriage for his wife and --perhaps the most important item of all-lie mist at least double the provision which he makes for the cost of going home on leave.

11. This provision is a considerable item in the expenses even of a bachelor: in the case of a married man it becomes a heavy burden. The cost of a first-class return passage an intermediate P. & 0. steamer is, roughly, between Singapore and London by £75. Therefore, if a married man is to get home once in five years he must put aside L30 a year for the purchase of his passage tickets alone, without taking into account various incidental expenses, such as the provision of an outfit of clothing suitable for a European climate. If the officer has a family the provision for passages must, of course, be increased accordingly until the time comes when it is necessary to leave the children at home to be educated; and when that time arrives the situation is scarcely improved. as he must then either leave his wife at home to look after the children, and, therefore, keep up two establishments, or must pay somebody else to take care of them.

12. Taking all these matters into account, I consider that, if he is to live in a manner suitable for an officer of the Cadet Service, a man who is without private means cannot prudently marry until he is in receipt of a salary of £600 a year, and the proposals which I am about to put forward are accordingly designed to secure that an officer who enters the service as a Cadet will be drawing a salary of this amount after some nine or The figure which I ten years' service, when he will be between the ages of 31 and 34. suggest may seem high, but it has been arrived at after examination of a large number of household accounts which have been courteously placed at my disposal, and full discussion with members of the service and others. Many-I think the majority-of those whom I have consulted are of opinion that the minimum income necessary for a married man in the Cadet Service is £700 a year; but, seeing that many officers have found it possible to marry on a good deal less than £600 a year, I believe that the salary which I suggest is sufficient-taking into account the prospect of receiving additional emoluments for acting in higher posts and having regard also to the fact that the scale of salaries which I am about to recommend should enable an officer to save something in his bachelor days towards the cost of setting up an establishment.

13. The scale of salaries which I suggest below is based on the assumption that all officers will be required to pay a reasonable rent if they live in quarters belonging to the Government. At present, practically all the Federated Malay States officers who entered the service before 1904 are entitled to free quarters, and a similar privilege is attached to a number of appointinents in the Colony. Officers who joined the service of the Federated Malay States after the beginning of 1904 are required to pay rent for their quarters after they cease to be carlets, as also ace Straits Settlements officers who occupy houses belonging to the Government but are not holding posts to which free quarters are attached. These differences have caused a considerable amount of confusion in connection with transfers from the Straits Settlements to the Federated Malay States branch of the service, or vice Persa, and it is very desirable that a uniform system should be introduced. Either all officers should be given free quarters, or a house allowance in case it is impossible to provide quarters, or else the privilege should be abolished, except in the case of cadets, and rent charged whenever an officer is in occupation of a Government house. The balance of advantage appears to be in favour of the latter system.

14. The scale of pay which I recommend is as follows :—

CADETS, £250 a year with free furnished quarters.

PASSED CADETS, £300 a year with free furnished quarters.

CLABS V., £400 a year, rising by four annual increments of £15 and two of

£20 to £300; with a duty allowance of £100 a year.

i.e., a non-pensionable allowance to be drawn only while the officer is actually at his post. An officer acting in a higher appointment should receive the full duty allowance of that appointment, is place of that of his substantive post.

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CLASS IV., £520 a year, rising by annual increments of £20 to £600; with a

duty allowance of £125 a year.

CLASS III., £650 a year, rising by annual increments of £25 to £750; with a

duty allowance of £150 a year.

CLASS II., £800 a year, rising by five annual increments of £30 and one of £50

to £1,000 a year; with a duty allowance of £175 a year. Class I., £1,050 a year, rising by annual increments of £50 to £1,200 a year; with a duty allowance of £200 a year, except in the cases of the Resident Councillor, Penang, and the Treasurer of the Straits Settlements, where the duty allowances should be £400 and £300 respectively. STAFF APPOINTMENTS :-

Chief Secretary, Federated Malay States, £2,000 a year with a duty allow.

ance of £500,

Colonial Secretary, Straits Settlements, £1.500 a year, with a duty allowance

of £300.

Resident, Perak, £1,200 a year, with a duty allowance of £500,

Resident, Selangor, £1,200 a year, with a duty allowance of £400. Resident, Negri Sembilan and Resident, Pahang, £1,200 a year, with a duty

allowance of £300.

It is of course understood that the temporary local allowance of 10 per cent. will cease when the new scale is introduced.

15. It will be observed that, except in the case of the staff appointments and the posts in Class I—a point to which I will recur later the minimum and maximum pen- sionable salaries of the various classes have practically been left unaltered. Some trifling changes have been made-usually with the object of arriving at a convenient round number-but any reductions so effected are more than counterbalanced by the more favourable rates of increments, which, I propose, should be annual in all cases. present they are annual in some classes, and triennial in others. Uniformity on this point seems desirable and recent charges have always been in the direction of the substitution of annual for triennial increments.

16. I subjoin some notes as to details.

At

(a) CADETS.

The salary which I propose is practically the same as the amount now drawn by a Cadet. (£225 + 10 per cent. = £247 108.). This salary, combined with free furnished quarters, should be sufficient, seeing that a Cadet is not expected to take a prominent place in public life. I do not suggest that it will enable him to live in luxury but-on the analogy of other professions-this is more than can be expected by a man who is merely learning his work and whose services to his employers are therefore of no great value. (b) Passed Cadets,

I had hoped that it would be found possible to abolish this grade and to allow a Cadet to rank as a Class V officer as soon as he had passed his examinations, but a serious difficulty is caused by the fact that all Cadets do not undergo the same training. Some are required to study Malay, some Tamil, and some Chinese. Chinese is a more difficult language than either of the others und Tamil is more difficult than Malay; and it has therefore been found necessary to fix different periods for the passing of the prescribed examinations.

If a Cadet is not to lose seniority he must pass in Malay within two years from the date of his arrival in the Malay Peninsula. In the case of Tamil, the period allowed is two and a half years, and in the case of Chinese it is three years. It is clear, therefore, that if a Cadet were to be placed in Class V as soon as he had passed his examinations, the student of Malay would have a considerable advantage over the student of Tamil or Chinese, and probably officers who were deputed to learn one of the latter languages would do so unwillingly, and would feel that they had a real grievance.

It might be possible to equalise matters by raising the standard in Malay or by requiring that the student of Malay should also possess an elementary knowledge of Tamil or of Javanese-a language now becoming of importance in the Federated Malay States owing to the influx of labourers from the Netherlands Indies--and if this can be done, I think that my original idea should be adopted. If, however, no such arrangement is practicable, it is still very desirable that steps should be taken to put an end to a state of things in which it has been possible for a Passed Cadet to wait six or seven years before receiving a substantive appointment, being employed for practically all the tine in Class V posts.

I suggest, therefore, as a suitable compromise, that a Cadet should be placed in