CO129-375 - Governor Sir Lugard - 1911 [1-2] — Page 36

32

that I advocated annual increments throughout, but the Governor and Sir R. May were so strongly opposed to the suggestion that I dropped it ). With this scale I think that the Hong Kong people will be a little better off than those in the Malay peninsula.

There

is justification for this because they have not the same chances of highly paid appointments owing to the absence of posts like the Residentships and the head- ships of Federal Departments.

I think the Hong Kong people will say that they are worse off because their First Class posts

are paid less but the fact is that their first class

posts are not comparable with those in the Halay Pen- insula, which are more in the nature of staff appoint-

Fong Kong First Class appointments are more

ments.

on a par with Second Class posts in "alaya.

Moreover they get a considerable advantage

in that they are paid in dollars which vary between 1/8d und 2/- ( if the monthly average of the dollar goes above 2/- we take it at 2/- for salary purposes) as against the Straits 2/4 dollar and, though I do not

feel able to express a confident opinion, my impression

is that the purchasing power of the Hong Kong dollar

is nowadays at least equal to that of the Straits dollar.

I do not believe that Hong Kong is a more expensive place to live in than Singapore, except in the matter

of house rent which is very high. (I asked Sir H. May if it wasnot possible to get over this difficulty by building Government houses, as in the Straits but

he