96
than that the local currencies have gone to
^
pieces under the influence of the United States
and the silver market, and that the offer of a
dollar salary may be too risky a remuneration to
attract a young man to the other end of the world.
If that is a fair view to take, I would
present review
suggest that in the RŐCOVOKATArcamomise
off the
cost of establishments in Hong Kong, we should
not at this stage bring into the picture a
Change
proposal to evise all European salaries on
dollar basis.
En Gent.
29.1
This is a very difficult question, and
I have never thought it tossible that we
could solve it here and now; but it seemed
desirable that a preliminary discussion of
the possibilities should be opened, in order
that local views might be elicited.
The future of the Hong kong currency
is at present obscure (at any rate to me:
but I imagine that the probabilities are
in favour of the evolution of a "managed"
currency in some sort of stable relation
to sterling. If that comes about, the
arguments in favour of the statement of
salaries in dollars are strong; they have
prevailed in 'lalaya, and in Ceylon the
tendency is to express more and more saiar
ies in rupees; only a small class of ster-
ling salaries remains, and that survives
partly because certain officers. derive
benefit from an artificial rate of exchang.
No comments yet.
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