CO129-345 - Public Offices & Foreign Office - 1907 — Page 367

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spontaneously increased by the Shipping Companies,

that owing to the increased size of the shipping

now engaged in the trade and the larger number of

passengers carried in each vessel the task of in-

specting an emigrant ship is far more lengthy and

laborious than in former years,

w

the remuneration

on the old scale still assigned to the Emigration

Officer cannot be considered adequate to the labour

involved.

I observe from Regulation No.13 of the Ninth

Schedule of the Hongkong Ordinance of 1889, that

fees for the remuneration of the Emigration Officer

are fixed by one of His Majesty's Principal Secre-

taries of State, and I venture to suggest that the

fee of Twenty-five dollars now charged upon each

application for an Emmigration Certificate might,

in view of the circumstances detailed above, be in-

creased. I would also suggest that the Government

of the Straits Settlements may be requested to

create fees to be charged under the Straits Settle-

Settlements Immigration Ordinance of 1902 on a like

scale as that decided upon in respect of the Hong-

kong Ordinance, This step, together with the rais-

ing of the "overtime fee" at Swatow and Kiungchow

from Six dollars to Seven dollars and fifty cents

per hour and the levy at the latter port of a fee of

Twenty dollars for services performed on Sundays and

holidays, would create a uniform scale of Emigration

fees to be collected at these ports on both British

and foreign emigrant vessels.

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