YRAME 2
Copy.
2, Feath Mansions,
Putney Heath Lane.
18th December, 1926.
146
**
Dear Beckett,
You have asked me to put in writing my views
with regard to the Hong Kong exchange compensation proposals,
which we recently discussed.
The question is one on which there is much
divergence of opinion, and the present suggestion that
officers having family obligations in England should be
given preferential treatment, is not a new one. It has been/
down hitherto, mainly I think, on the following grounds,
turned
It is hardly desirable to give a monetary inducement to an
officer to live apart from his wife: the cost of maintaining
a family in England is by no means necessarily greater than
the cost of maintaining that family in Hong Kong: It is not
advisable to differentiate between a married and an unmarried
officer as regards personal salary as distinct from such
emoluments as passages and housing.
To take the first point. It is probably true
that most women find life in England more attractive in the
long run than life in Hong Kong, and it would seem to be
unwise to encourage wives by means of a cash payment to go home and leave their husbands. I refer more particularly to
officers of the status of Police, Sanitary Inspectors, Overseers, and so on, who are undoubtedly more efficient and better behaved if they have British born wives living with them in the Colony. This view at any rate was strongly
You will find on record held by Sir Henry May and others.
an actual experiment in exchange compensation on the lines
now
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