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Mr. COSTLEY-WHITE: Medical officers get six months for study leave plus all the leave they have earned, but other officers, agricultural and so on, get only three months of the leave earned, and so many of these officers are not so inclined The Govern- to take study leave as the medical officers are.
ment might like them to take a course but do not care to press it.
Sir DONALD CAMERON But in many cases in East Africa it is only sufficient to give him three months. The second category is different.
Mr. AMERY: I do not know if we can follow up the study of these questions much further at this moment, though there is a clear expression of opinion that it would help the different Governments if this Conference expressed itself as strongly in favour of a liberal scale of study leave, and I will ask Lord Lovat that this question may be considered by his Sub- Committee.
Mr. ORMSBY GORE: May I ask one question apropos of the East African rules with regard to administrative officers who are given special facilities for anthropology? Do many of them avail themselves of that, and where is it carried out?
Mr. RANKINE: One officer from Nyasaland took a course last year.
Mr. ORMSBY GORE: And you think there is value in it? Sir DONALD CAMERON: Yes.
Mr. POPHAM LOBB: Would you consider putting in any- thing with regard to compulsory study leave as the sense of the Conference?
Mr. AMERY: What do you think? That the Government should make it compulsory on all officers?
Mr. POPHAM LOBB: Yes, it is in some cases already, but the principle is not admitted.
Mr. AMERY: Then they shall put it in as compulsory for promotion?
Mr. POPHAM LOBB: Yes.
Mr. McELDERRY: It covers education and all sorts of things.
Mr. AMERY: It is obviously more essential in the medical and scientific services. You cannot make it compulsory that the administrative officer shall be debarred from promotion. He may be good enough without it. Shall we put it that in the case of the medical and scientific services it should be regarded as essential for promotion?
Mr. POPHAM LOBB: And I suggest in the educational service also.
Retiring Allowances for Nurses.
Mr. AMERY: I wondered if we might have time to deal with a cognate subject, and that is the retiring allowances to nursing sisters which is dealt with in paper C.0.8. There has been difficulty with regard to the nursing service, since, if a nurse has served first in one Colony and then in another. there are no adequate arrangements at present to get any sort of retiring allowance, and the nurses are a very important and valuable element in the whole health scheme of the Colonies, and I should have thought it very desirable for the Conference to agree that some scheme-whether the one suggested in this memorandum or some other should be generally adopted. I notice that Nigeria and the Gold Coast both think that the scheme put forward is not generous enough. Sir GRAEME THOMSON: We are most anxious to attract the best nurses, and unfortunately West Africa has not such a good reputation as other parts of the Tropical Empire.
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Mr. AMERY: There is nothing to prevent an increment for years, the West African service being reckoned higher on that scale.
Sir GRAEME THOMSON: No, I think not.
Sir HORACE BYATT: Why should there not be a variety
of rates? If the Gold Coast and Nigeria think the rate should be 12s. 6d.. does that affect the scheme in any way? Take Trinidad, where we have passed legislation adopting this scheme. We are allowing them a rate of 8s. 4d. If a nurse is transferred to the Gold Coast, while in the Gold Coast she will qualify for higher pension rates. It is not essential to have the rate uniform all round.
Mr. AMERY: Provided that for the whole of their service, however much they move about, they will have something accruing to their benefit. Sir Horace does not mean places like Gibraltar.
Sir HORACE BYATT: Provided all Colonies adopt the scheme.
Mr. AMERY: If all the Colonies wish to get efficient nurses, to make transfer easy the rate they pay ought to be the same, allowing for differences in health conditions, amenities of life. and so on. If there are two Colonies equally unhealthy, and one gives 12s. 6d. and the other 8s. 44., obviously the meaner Colony will in the long run be prejudiced and not get the best
nurses.
Sir HORACE BYATT: You cannot perhaps differentiate in climate between the Gold Coast and Nigeria, but you can between Nigeria and Gibraltar.
Mr. RANKINE: The time at which nurses may retire ought to be uniform. It is unfair for a nurse having served in a Colony or Colonies where the retiring age is 45 or 50 to go to Gibraltar and then not to be able to retire until the age of 60.
Sir HORACE BYATT: Is not that the same with ourselves? In East Africa an officer has a right to retire at the age of 50. Supposing he has put in 10 or 15 years in East Africa and then goes to the West Indies, he has no right to retire until 55. Is that unfair on the officer?
Mr. AMERY: Nurses move about a good deal more than that. Sir HORACE BYATT: As far as my memory serves me that is not so.
Mr. RANKINE: Ours all get married.
Sir GRAEME THOMSON: If they do not get married, they spend long periods in Nigeria.
Sir DONALD CAMERON: I have never been able to find any explanation, except the general explanation, but, having served in both places, my experience is that the medical depart- ment opens its mouth much wider in West Africa than in East Africa. We get a very good class of nurse in Tanganyika and never have difficulty in filling vacancies although the salaries are much less; the cost of living is the same. When I left Nigeria the medical department had put a strong case for increasing salaries much more, and that 12s. 6d. is, I anticipate, part of that scheme.
Mr. AMERY: There is the very point you mentioned this morning, that their parents are very reluctant to let them go to the West Coast, thinking it less healthy, and consequently you do not get the good ones unless you pay more. I think there is a good deal of force in Mr. Rankine's point. At present you are entitled to a pension after, say, 20 years in West Africa. If you serve 19 years and 6 months, you may have to serve 10 years and 6 months more in some other Colony, perhaps tropical, before you are entitled. Would it not be very much
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