CO129-393 - Governor Sir May - 1912 [11] — Page 310

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Enclosure

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Public Works Department,

7th. February, 1912.

Rers 23 DEC 12

Sir P.J.D.Lugard, K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.,

Governor of the Colony of Hongkong and its Dependencies.

Honoured Sir,

We your humble petitioners would beg to submit

the following for Your Excellency's favourable consideration.

(a). Owing to the increased cost of living it has become

almost an impossibility for your petitioners to live decently

as becomes our position, on present salaries, which at the best

of times we consider inadequate.

(b).

Your Petitioners are men who have devoted years

of their lives in acquiring practical knowledge in their various

callings, in order to qualify themselves to hold

positions

such as they now occupy. Taking this fact into consideration it

must readily be admitted that the present scale of salaries is

enormously inadequate and not at all in keeping with the

responsibilities imposed. Nel ther does it bear any comparison

with the salaries paid in other departments, in which abilities

required and the responsibilities imposed are much lower.

(c).

We would humbly submit to Your Excellency that we be granted an increase of salary of at least 50% on the present scale for all grades.

Trusting to merit favourable consideration for

which your petitioners will be ever grateful we beg to

subscribe ourselves.

>

Your Excelleny's Most Obedient

Servants

Overseers of the P.W.D.

(Here follows 22 signatures).