CO129-392 - Governor Sir May - 1912 [9-10] — Page 186

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N°

342.

C.O.

34350

RECO

REGE 30 OCT 12

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

HONGKONG. 4th. October, 1912.

175

sir,

Ep.32418/11

With reference to Sir F. D. Lugard's Despatch

No. 326 of the 14th. September, 1911, I have the honour to inform you that, although Mr. Mackie was not included in the free passage scheme, in view of the circumstances set out in a letter from him, of which I enclose a copy, Sir F D. Lugard sanctioned the advance of the cost of 2 free passages and wrote as follows:-

"The case is a very hard one.....The precedent of "Government advancing money for a passage is a bad one, but "in this case by the Principal Civil Medical Officer's "certificate it is the only chance of saving Irs. Mackie's

"life".

2.

Mr. Mackie returned from leave in due course

and I had to consider whether he should refund the advance made for his passages, or whether I should recommend his being included in the free-passage scheme. I am not prepared to do this as the other officers in the department could not carry on Mr. Mackie's duties during his absence on leave, and the proper course would therefore be to credit him with three months' leave on half salary and to call upon him to refund the amount paid for the passages, namely, $1,525.33. The difference between the full and half

salary is $278.43, which means that the amount to be refunded

would

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LC..

LEWIS HARCOURT, P.,

&C.,

&c. ..