CO129-307 - Governor Sir Blake - 1901 [10-12] — Page 670

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or transfer to the Straits Settlements, to draw a Sterling salary.

3.

I gather from your correspondence with the Straits Settlements that the Officer Administering that Government is of opinion either that all officers new in the service should have the option of accepting a Sterling salary or that the acceptance of such a Sterling salary should be a necessary condition of promotion. In your Despatch No.7* of the 1st March to the Straits Settlements (paragraph 5) you expressed the opinion that all individual members of the service should have the option of accepting or declining the new Sterling rates; but in your later Despatches to that Government, and in that to which I have now the honour to reply, your instructions are that the scheme of Sterling salaries is to apply only to Officers entering the service after the date of your Despatch (August 15th, 1901). As I understand your instructions, therefore, no Officer now in the service is to be allowed under any circumstances to exchange his dollar for a Sterling salary. I may mention incidentally that the enclosed scheme is such that under its provisions it does not seem probable that any of the older Officers in the service would be willing to accept the Sterling salary offered to them, while many of the junior Officers would find it to their advantage to do so. At the same time I think it would be advisable to allow all Officers to exercise a choice between their present pay and the proposed Sterling salaries.

The points I have referred to are matters upon