The Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India (the
Lee Commission) was appointed in 1923 to enquire into the organisation
and general conditions of service, the possibility of transferring any
duties and functions to provincial services, and the recruitment of
Europeans and Indians.
To assist in its enquiry into the conditions of service the Royal
Commission collected examples of the budgets of individual members of
the civil service, some very detailed. The general thrust of the
evidence submitted was the rising cost of living in India and the
inadequate pay of civil servants.
One
example is a budget submitted with the written evidence of the Indian
Educational Association, Burma (IOR/Q/11/24 No.1002). It compares the
Bazaar prices of various goods in 1913/14 and 1923, such as foodstuffs,
furniture, crockery and clothes, and lists the cost of the various types
of servants (head boy, ayah, cook, paniwallah, sweeper, chauffeur,
dhobi, mali, etc).
The anonymous monthly budget of a Professor in the University of
Rangoon in his first year of service gives an interesting insight in to
what civil servants felt they had to spend to keep up what they saw as
their status in the community in which they lived and worked, both in
the eyes of other Europeans and of native Indians. The Professor had
four servants (personal boy, driver, sweeper and dhobi), employed a
typist, owned a car, subscribed to a large number of scientific
societies and was a member of three clubs (Golf Club, Gymkhana Club and
Boat Club). His wife suffered a break down in her health after only a
short time in Burma and had to return to England, and he lists the
expenses associated with doctors' bills and her return passage. In fact
expenses associated with medical problems were a
