CONFIDENTIAL
I have not come to any conclusion about what is needed,
as I am uncertain as to whether the difficulties that have
arisen are due to personal or other factors. At the
moment I incline to the former view and hope that the
position will already be righting itself.
20.
Mr Foggon's opinion was that labour legislation in
Hong Kong has very greatly improved, and that all that is
now needed is to keep things moving and in line with the
steadily rising standard of living. So long as this
happened he thought there should be no real difficulty
about defending labour conditions. He asked me to do what
I could to encourage the Department of Labour and to ensure
that their proposals were not unreasonably blocked in the
Secretariat. He surprised me by saying that opposition to
labour legislation had frequently materialised in the
Secretariat even when it had been agreed by the Labour
Advisory Board.
Salaries and Recruitment
21.
The Salaries Commission Report is an excellent point
of departure. I have discussed it at some length with
Sir George Mallaby. He agreed that the crucial problem
for government was to correct the disastrous fall-off in
intake into the administrative class of both local and
expatriate officers and of expatriates into the Inspectorate
of the Police. When pressed he agreed that the proposals
in the Salaries Commission Report, which were the best on
which he could obtain a unanimous report, would probably not
10. CONFIDENTIAL
/be