CO129-468 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1921 [6-8] — Page 31

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compares very unfavourably with the increases granted to

Professional officers in other Departments of the Hongkong Civil

Service. We your petitioners humbly submit that our profession has,

at all times in the service of this Colony, been valued at too low

an Estimate,

4. May your petitioners respectfully draw Your Lordship's

attention to the annexed Table "Comparison of Scales of Salaries"?

From this Table, without further emplification on the part of your

petitioners, Your Lordship will readily learn the serious position

which will be created by the introduction of the New Scale of

Salaries by comparison with the Scale of Salaries and Duty Pay

actually paid by Government, in Dollars, in June 1914, at which time

it is generally conceded, economic conditions were normal. To-day

the general cost of living in this Colony has increased at least

45 per centum since June 1914.

5. We, your petitioners, much regret that the New Scale of

Salaries should have been drawn up in such direct conflict with

that guiding principle which actuated the Royal Commission on the

Public Services in India the Report of which was issued in 1917

the following is an Extract from that Report :-

"In fixing the Salaries of their Employees,

Government

"should pay so much and so much only as is necessary to obtain

"recruits of the right stamp and to maintain them in such

"a degree of comfort and dignity as will shield them from

"temptation and keep them efficient for the term of their

service.

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6. If this principle is sound, as we believe it to be, it

follows that there must be some relation between the Scale of

Salaries paid in the currency of the country in which one resides

and the general cost of living in that country. In January 1919

when a Commission was appointed to Institute, make and Conduct an

Enquiry regarding the Emoluments of the Public Service of the

Colony of Hongkong your petitioners' carefully considered opinion

was that the increase in the general cost of living at that date

(2).

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