Letter from H H [Herbert Hall] Turner, University Observatory, Oxford, to [Joseph] Larmor His faith in [David] Gill's sense has been shaken for the first time. Payment by results is well in the abstract, but does not help in bringing before Government how deserving the head of a scientific department might be. Salaries of scientific people fail to go up, and [George Biddell] Airy and [William Henry Mahoney] Christie both failed in remedying this. Turner gives the example of [William David] Barber, Secretary to the Board of Visitors, who started as a second class clerk and is now has a higher salary than either [Philip Herbert] Cowell or [Arthur Stanley] Eddington. Even an established computer such as Davidson can only reach £250 in salary. Efforts to get better terms for computers at Greeenwich have failed and the difficulty for a head of department would be greater still. They must stand by their original bargain and this must be a good one. He has heard that Cowell's offer at the N.A. [Nautical Almanac] is inferior to that made to [Arthut Matthew Weld] Downing, which would be wrong. 1 April 1910