CO129-601-4 Salaries Commission- Medical and Health Department 10-5-1949 - 16-3-1950 — Page 22

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c/o Sanitary Department,

Post Office Building,

HONG KONG.

30th September, 1949.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies,

Colonial Office,

LONDON S.W.1.

Sir,

We, the European Health Inspectors of this Colony, wish to appeal to you for rectification of our anomalous position, created by the recommendations of the Salaries Commission which were promulgated last year.

The recommendations of this Commission up-graded certain posts in other branches of the Government Service, which were inferior to ours before the war, and brought them to the same level as ours. Other posts which were equal to ours before the war have also been up-graded, whist ours have remained stationary. In the former category are Prison Warders, Police Officers (Constables to Sub-Inspectors) Fire Brigade Officers and Hospital Stewards, whilst in the latter are Public Works Department Overseers, Land Bailiffs, Stores Inspectors and Factory Inspectors.

This anomaly was brought to the notice of the Committee of Anomalies, Salaries Commission, in our petition submitted in April, 1948, but without success.

On the 2nd September, 1948, an appeal was submitted to His Excellency the Governor, who, whilst being unable to accede to our request for an alteration of our salary scale, invited our attention to the provision in the estimates for 1949/1950 for an increase, for six to twelve, in the number of posts of Senior Inspector in our Department.

We wish to point out that an increase in the number of posts of Senior Inspector was not the primary object of our petition to the Committee of Anomalies, nor of our appeal to His Excellency the Governor. Our object was to obtain the same new scale of basic pay as had been granted to posts in other Departments which were considered equivalent to ours before the war.

We are qualified Health Inspectors, having passed the examination of the Royal Sanitary Institute. Many of us possess two or more of the following certificates issued by that body:- Sanitary Inspector, Sanitary Science, Meat & Food Inspector and Tropical Hygiene.

Our duties as Health Inspectors are too numerous to give in detail, but it may well be appreciated that, with a population of about two million people of all nationalities