CO129-375 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [1-2] — Page 35

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The existing officers would all have kept their dollar salaries in any case unless the sterling scheme had given them an increase and therefore had no personal interest in the matter (and I regret to say that in my opinion personal interest is about the only thing that really appeals to the "ong Kong Cadet) and the Governor

was Sir "enry Blaks.

Consequently when the Cadets who had been appointed under the sterling scheme began to get pro- motion they found that they were receiving salaries

very considerably smaller than the men whose places they took and who were certainly no better men than they. This has natur.lly caused a great deal of discontent with which it is hard not to sympathize.

The old dollar salaries with exchange com-

pensation on one-half only, were presumably too small or there was no justification for the grunt of com-

pensation on the whole salary and though the dollar salaries with this compensation on the full amount, are in my opinion rather higher than is necessary, they

are not outrageously high for the East. We have

accordingly drawn up a scale which is approximately

equal to the old dollar salaries for local purposes but

by the introduction of the system of local allowances,

have avoided the main objection to the higher scale,

which is that it entailed payment of leave salaries

and pensions at far too high a rate.

I ask therefore for approval of the scale

put forward in paragraph 3 of this despatch (I may say

that