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about 25 prospective homesteaders, most of whom have deposited approximately one-fifth of the total selling price. There will be approximately 150 house plots to be allocated on these estates. The St. John homesteads will range from a low of 2 acres to a high of 15 acres, or an average of 5 acres; with prices ranging from $25 to $375, or an average of approximately $125.

PUBLIC UTILITIES

During the year under review, considerable attention was given to the major problem of electric light and power conversion as a postwar necessity. In St. Thomas, the electric current used is 220 volts direct current, and is supplied by a private company under the supervision of the public utilities commission. In St. Croix, the towns of Christiansted and Frederiksted are equipped with 110 volts direct current systems furnished by a private company under supervision of the light and power commission. Operating costs are high, resulting in abnormally high rates to consumers. The rural districts of St. Croix however, are supplied with a low rate 110 volts alternating current service by the rural electrification division of the Virgin Islands Co. In. St. Thomas, the private company which has been furnishing electric light and power to the consuming public over a great many years, requested a long-term franchise as a condition precedent to obligating itself to convert to alternating current. This company secured the services of consulting engineers from the United States and made an exhaustive report on new generating facilities and distribution system conversion. Because the proposed investment and resultant estimated rates were considered abnormal, the public utilities commission of the municipality of St. Thomas and St. John, with the approval of the municipal council and the Governor, appealed to the Secretary of the Interior for professional assistance for the purpose of making an independent survey, The chief engineer of the Division of Power, Department of the Interior, was assigned to investigate the power supply situation of Charlotte Amalie. His report, submitted shortly after the close of the fiscal year, recommended that cheap alternating current service be made available to the people of St. Thomas by a municipal electric system to be supervised by a power board. The estimated investment was given at $371,500 with an average return of 3.39 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is less than one-half the 7.5-cent return called for by the consulting engineers of the private utility.

On the island of St. Croix, the municipal council was in process of considering a report from its light and power commission recommending the renewal for 25 years of the private franchise for light and power for the two towns with slightly reduced rates, when the chief

engineer of the Division of Power of the Department of the Interior was assigned to study the St. Thomas problem. The St. Croix council requested his assistance and, as the result of the study of this official, the report of the light and power commission was rejected. This officer of the Department of the Interior submitted a report. shortly after the close of the fiscal year recommending that the municipal council of St. Croix exercise its option to purchase the facilities of the private utility and then make arrangements with the rural electrification division of the Virgin Islands Co. for serving all the town consumers in addition to the rural consumers. Such an arrangement will provide the present direct current town consumers with alternating-current service at the lowest possible rate and will make available the benefits of cheap electricity to the widest possible extent.

IMMIGRATION

Early in the fiscal year, opportunities were offered to all aliens who had been imported for construction work of military reservations, and who were released by the cessation of such projects, to be repatriated to their respective countries. Arrangements for such repatriation were made with the full cooperation of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States Navy, and the United States Army. Recommendation was made to the Immigration and Naturalization Service that no additional aliens be permitted to enter St. Thomas on the blanket authority given several years ago for workers at defense bases and, in addition, the Immigration and Naturalization Service was requested and urged to deport all aliens, illegally residing in the Virgin Islands, who entered these Islands for the purpose of obtaining work in defense construction, who had left such work or were discharged therefrom, and were still illegally engaged in private employment.

FEDERAL PERSONNEL PROBLEMS

An impossible, intolerable, and discriminatory personnel situation exists and has existed for many years within the activities of the Interior Department in the Virgin Islands, the difficulties of which have been accentuated and emphasized by the enactment of the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945. Fifty-three Federal employees appointed by the Secretary of the Interior for the Government of the Virgin Islands are, in effect, unclassified. These employees, including a department head, assistant department heads, chief clerks, stenographers, bookkeepers, accountants, clerks and messengers, do not now receive and have never received salaries equivalent to the ranges fixed by the Classification Act of 1923, as amended. They are natives of the Virgin Islands of

the United States and American citizens. For the most part, they have had years of experience in the Government service in the Virgin Islands. Their loyalty, ability, and intergity are unquestioned.

In practically every other Federal office in the Virgin Islands, including the Navy Department, the War Department, the Office of Price Administration, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Division of Disbursement of the Treasury Department, the Soil Conservation Service, the Farm Security Administration, the Office of Supply of the War Food Administration, the United States Public Health Service, and the Department of Courts; native employees of similar qualifications have been paid and are still being paid salaries under the Classification Act of 1923, as well as the 25 percent territorial service differential. Likewise, the Interior Department has paid Classification Act salaries and the 25 percent territorial service differential to 24 employees in the higher brackets, including administrative officers and officers in the professional and subprofessional services. When the Department of the Interior took over the administration of the government of the Virgin Islands from the Navy Department in 1931, it was found that employees of the government of the Virgin Islands, who were paid from Federal funds appropriated for such government, were appointed by the Governor and were not classified either as to salaries or grades. The Department of the Interior immediately issued a schedule of local salary ranges for positions in the Virgin Islands, patterned generally after the system of salary ranges of the Classification Act of 1923, but reduced in each grade so as to 'conform with the salaries which were then being paid to those employees by the Navy Department. Subsequently, this local schedule of salary ranges for positions paid from Federal funds in the Virgin Islands, when filled by local employees, was amended first to increase the promotion increments and later to increase the salary ranges, because of the severe competition of the other Federal agencies which had by that time extended their services to the Virgin Islands and, as stated above, were employing natives of the Virgin Islands unde: the grades and salaries of the Classification Act of 1923.

These employees have never been paid salaries equivalent to the salary ranges of the Classification Act of 1923. They were delayed in receiving the benefits of the War Overtime Act of 1943 until the Comptroller General ruled that, as their salaries were not fixed by local wage boards or in accordance with local prevailing native wage rates, they were entitled to such overtime privileges. They have been denied the mandatory application of statutory periodic within-grade salary advancements. They have never received the 25 percent territorial service differential which has been paid to practically all other Federal employees in the Virgin Islands. They have not received the increases in basic rates of compensation authorized by the Federal Employees Pay Act of 1945.

Repeated recommendations have been made for the abolishment of the so-called local schedule of salary ranges for native employees of the Interior Department in the Virgin Islands. Estimates of funds necessary for conversion of these salary rates to Classification Act rates have been included every year, in the past several years, in the appropriation estimates for the Virgin Islands. These repeated recommendations have been fruitless. In August 1944, all affected divisions of the Department of the Interior executed an agreement with the Government of the Virgin Islands for abolishment of the local schedule as of July 1, 1945, and reclassification under the 1923 Classification Act, provided the necessary appropriations were allowed by the Congress. As a result of this agreement, an appropriation was included in the estimates for the fiscal year 1946 for reclassification and for payment of the territorial service differential. This appropriation was disallowed by the Bureau of the Budget, restored by the Senate Appropriations Committee, and stricken in conference.

There is no

Action is needed and needed promptly to eliminate the distinction between employees paid salaries in accordance with the Classification Act rates and those paid salaries under the local schedule. There is no reason for discrimination between the two groups. geographic distinction between natives of the Virgin Islands, employed by other Federal agencies who receive all the benefits of the Classification Act, and natives of the Virgin Islands employed by the Department of the Interior, who do not receive such benefits. There is no real distinction between the work performed by the two groups. The present policy of depriving a deserving group of Federal employees of these benefits and privileges, which are enjoyed by all other Federal employees, should be discontinued immediately.

LEGISLATIVE AUTHORITIES

The legislative assembly of the Virgin Islands this year enacted inadequate ordinances to govern the production, inspection, and sale of milk, and the sale of meat and meat products. Both of these bills will require considerable revision. The legislative assembly also enacted a fairly satisfactory law regarding the practice of medicine and its allied sciences; and a uniform law concerning actions to declare void or dissolve the marriage contract. Among other items of legislation adopted by the assembly was a testimonial in memory of the late Franklin D. Roosevelt, a resolution to provide for a committee to revise the Organic Act of the Virgin Islands, a resolution petitioning Congress to provide a resident commissioner for the Virgin Islands, and a bill designating February 2, 1945, as Governor Harwood Day. Outstanding items of legislation of the municipal council of St. Thomas and St. John were ordinances to provide for lump-sum payment for accrued leave of municipal employees upon separation from

the service, to protect the public health by controlling the spread of endemic typhus fever, and to authorize the leasing by the municipality of St. Thomas and St. John of the market and cold-storage plant owned by the United States.

Perhaps the most significant piece of legislation passed by the municipality of St. Thomas and St. John was enacted on May 30, 1945, in the form of an antidiscrimination law determining the right of all persons to enjoy the facilities offered by public places and businesses on the islands of St. Thomas and St. John. This bill provides that no person shall be denied access to, service, equal treatment, or employment in/or at any publicly licensed place of business (including public transportation), or benefits soliciting public patronage in the municipality of St. Thomas and St. John because of politics, religion, race, color, or because of any other reason not applicable to all persons. In St. Croix the municipal council adopted ordinances creating a homestead commission, a recreation commission, and a municipal police commission. Two outstanding items of legislation were ordinances to provide for lump-sum payment for accrued leave of municipal employees upon separation from the service; and a salary scale for teachers.

CONCLUSION

Despite years of study and planning and experimentation, no one yet knows conclusively, or even attempts to predict, whether these islands, purchased by the United States from Denmark in 1917 for strategic reasons, 132 square miles in total area, and with a population now estimated at 26,000, can ever become self-supporting on any permanent and sound basis which will provide decent American living standards.

A definite colonial policy should be developed for the islands by the United States. Greater autonomy is inevitable but, with such autonomy, there should be a clear recognition of the ultimate relationship of the United States to the Islands. That relationship should not tend toward excessive paternalism. Every effort must be concentrated on a long-range program of helping the islanders to help themselves.

The United States, however, should continue to assume the responsibility of providing whatever assistance, financial or other, that is actually needed to maintain in the Islands a standard of living and a level of service comparable to the American way of life. Until such a policy is enunciated and adhered to by the Government of the United States, efforts to revise the Islands' Organic Act of 1936, now under consideration among insular leaders, must necessarily be indeterminate and ineffectual.

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