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No. 93

HONGKONG.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE ON THE SUBJECT OF RETRENCHMENT AND THE MEMORIAL OF THE UNOFFICIAL

MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

DATED 12TH JANUARY, 1893.

Laid before the Legislative Council by Command of His Excellency the Governor, on the 2nd June, 1893,

Governor to Secretary of State.

(Confidential.)

No. 112.

3rd June, 1893.

MY LORD,

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 8th June, 1892.

Before I received Your Lordship's despatch No. 112 of 3rd ultimo, the question of the expenditure on the clerical establishment in this Colony was already engaging my attention, and on 28th ultimo, I requested by my despatch No. 189 that a decision on the classification scheme forwarded with despatch No. 88 of 15th March last might be deferred until I should have had an opportunity of re-consider- ing the suggestion made by Mr. MITCHELL-INNES and of addressing Your Lordship further on the subject.

2. As Your Lordship is aware, it will shortly have to be decided in what directions reductions may be effected in the expenditure without creating hardship or impairing the efficiency of the public service. I have come to the conclusion that the civil service is over-officered, that the cost of the Police might probably be with safety reduced, and that the clerical service is probably over-manned and certainly overpaid. Reductions in the strength of the civil service will have to await vacancies, and I am not as yet prepared to submit definite proposals for reducing the Police force; but the present is a convenient opportunity for placing the clerical branch of the service on a proper footing.

3. The enclosed minute, which the Colonial Secretary has drawn up at my request, exhibits the average of the clerical salaries in Hongkong, Singapore, Mauritius, and Ceylon; and his further minute of 6th instant, (copy enclosed), prepared by him by my desire after I had communicated to him Your Lordship's despatch No. 112 of 3rd ultimo, contains a proposed scheme of classification which shews a saving of some $31,000 per annum on the existing expenditure. Your Lordship will, I am sure, recognize the thoroughness displayed by Mr. O Brien in the compilation of these two minutes.

4. I have carefully considered the scheme submitted by him, and I concur in thinking that it makes a very liberal provision for the clerical establishment. It divides the establishment into six classes and assigns salaries ranging from $360 rising to $480 in the lowest class, to $1,800 rising to $2,400 in the highest. Taking into account the number of clerks which it is proposed to place in each class, and assuming the average salary in each class to be half the total of the maximum and minimum salaries of the class, it gives an annual average salary for all the clerks of about $823. This average exceeds that in the Singapore and Mauritius establishments by $88 and $79 a year respectively, and is a great deal more than double the average of the Ceylon establishment. The salaries provided by the scheme are also far more liberal than those given by the best private firms in Hongkong, even apart from the consideration that Government grants pensions while those firms do not.

The Right Honourable

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON,

Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State

for the Colonies,

&c.,

&c.