CO129-419 - Individuals - 1914 — Page 441

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TEL

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20/11/14.

re Hongkong despatch No 59 of 21/2/1911 Colonial Office do. 91 6/4/1911

& other correspondence connected therewith.

STATEMENT

re Pensionable Personal Allowance

as distinct from the Salary of the post of Superintendent of Accounts, Correspondence and Stores,

432

I have asked the favour of this interview because of the both verbal and written evidence which I can give you in support of the fact that it was the intention of the Hongkong Government that, in the continued absence of promotion, my pensionable personal allow- ance should be raised on lat January 1915 to a maximum of £120 per annum, and that the Secretary of State's despatch was understood by the Government to mean that, and nothing else.

It was the Government's intention that I should be given a first instalment of £70 per annum, as from 1/1/1912, and that if, at the end of three more years, I still remained in the same post That was the second instalment of £50 per annum was to be given.

The Hon Mr C. what the Government understood had been approved. Clementi (who was acting Colonial Secretary in 1911) told me that, should I remain for the time mentioned without promotion, the ap- plication which I then was asked to make was a mere formality, and the Colonial Treasurer (Hon: Mr A. M. Thomson) holds the view that the second instalment follows automatically in the absence of pro- motion. The Director of Public Works (Hon: Mr W. Chatham) wrote officially whilst in Hongkong that he understood the arrangement to be that the payment of the second instalment was dependent only on whether I had been given promotion during the three years period. Since informing him here The was recently on furlough) of the pre- sent state of my case, he has replied unofficially, expressing his

On receiv- surprise and the hope that it would come all right yet. ing C.0. letter No 15,391/1914 of the lat May last, after my arrival here on furlough, informing me that the second instalment could not be approved for reasons which had been conveyed to me by the present Governor's direction, I replied that the reasons referred to were inapplicable to the question of a pensionable personal allowance, bearing, as they did, solely on the question of an increase to the salary of the post, which had been considered and finally disposed of in 1911 by the Secretary of State, who agreed with the Hongkong Government that the salary of the post could not be increased, as

I pointed out that I had not it was already "sufficiently high". asked for a reopening of the salary question, which had been re-

Further opened by the Governor under an obvious misapprehension. correspondence took place, but as I did not succeed, I took the opportunity offered by Sir Frederick Lugard's recent visit to Eng-

AB land to forward the complete file and correspondence to him. it was he who as Governor in 1911 had dealt with the oase (Sir Henry May being then Governor of Fiji) it appeared to me that he He was in the best position to justify or refute my contention. confirmed my view, and the views of the other officials to whom I have referred. In doing so he wrote: "You have put your point "the error between an increase in the emoluments of the office and most clearly in your letter to "a personal allowance to yourself "me.

You have put it equally clearly to the Under Secretary of "State. I could not state the case more clearly than you have done." Sir Frederick Lugard seemed to have no doubt that the Governor wàs under a misapprehension, and that the matter could be put right by pointing out the mistake to Sir Henry May, and on this point he wrote: "If you have not already done so, I should advise you to "place your case before Sir Henry May as clearly as you have done "for me in this letter and in your letter to the Colonial Office." If you can see your way to personally consider this all-important point, which confuses the salary of the post with the matter of a

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