CO129-468 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1921 [6-8] — Page 30

„OKE IT

Jau 3 [C‚y beedi bod 192ại jõu

To

ORIGINAL

23

Public Works Office,

Hongkong, 23 June, 1920.

The Right Honourable

LORD VISCOUNT MILNER P.C.,G.C.B.,G.C.M.G. &c.

His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Your Lordship,

1.Te, your humble petitioners, Executive and Assistant

Engineers of the Public Works Department of Hongkong, much regret

the necessity of having to petition Your Lordship for serious

reconsideration of the Scale of our Emoluments.

2. In order that Your Lordship may appreciate the responsibili-

ties which devolve upon your petitioners in the carrying out of the

duties of their offices, may we acquaint Your Lordship of the fact

that last year's Expenditure on Public Works Recurrent and

Extraordinary, for which your petitioners were responsible, amounted

to $3,057,512.82. Your petitioners duties are not only defined by

this huge expenditure but include the administration of the

Buildings' Ordinance and other offices and in addition the con-

sideration of numerous schemes many of which entail an immense

amount of work.

3. We, your humble petitioners are grateful and thank Your

Lordship for the temporary assistance by way of free passages and

the grant, under certain stringent conditions, of house rent

allowance, but we humbly submit that the New Scale of Salaries,

expressed in Dollars, taking into account this temporary assistance, is not comparable with the increased cost of living in this Colony

since 1914; nor is the increased Sterling Salary for leave and

of living pension purposes comparable with the increased coat

in England the new Scale of Salaries being, on an average,

35.83 per centum over the Scale of Salaries paid in 1914.

increase on the new scale over that in force in June 1914

only

The

(1).

Page 30Page 31