CO129-569-7 Revision of salaries 6-7-1938 - 11-10-1938 — Page 63

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Colonial Empire it does not appear that the salaries now approved are either inadequate in actual amount or out of relation to the salaries of other branches of the Colonial

service.

4. The fact would appear to be that the salaries

prescribed by the Salaries Commission in 1929 resulted in more favourable treatment of Public Works Department officers in this Colony by comparison with other branches of the Service here than is usual elsewhere and I may say that the comparatively

higher salaries paid to the Public Works Department were a source of constant complaint by officers in other branches who claim by virtue of comparison with the relationship obtaining

elsewhere that they should be paid approximately similar

scales. I should certainly anticipate that any raising of the general level of salaries in the Public Works Department would be followed by claims to higher salaries by many other

branches of the Service.

5. It is instructive to compare the relative treatment

of engineers and surveyors to which particular attention is

paid in the representations submitted. This is of course only one of many cases but it is the one which has been chosen for

comparison by the engineers themselves. According to

information contained in the current issue of the Colonial

Office List engineers and surveyors are on identical scales in Palestine and in Tanganyika. In the Gold Coast and Nigeria the scales show only minor differences and rise to the same maximum and in Malaya the Surveyor's scale is identical with those of "Assistant Engineers" and "Executive Engineers". The relationship now proposed between the scales for engineers and surveyors in this Colony is therefore even now more favourable to the engineers than elsewhere. This difference I believe to be justified by the fact that survey work here is not quitè

comparable with similar work in undeveloped territories.