10.
SECRE
Given all the administrative difficulty of getting such a scheme organised and subsequently policed, I personally doubt whether it could make any worthwhile contribution to contentment in Hong Kong by the early
'80s and it might on the contrary be a source of friction with contributors and beneficiaries alike.
12.
On the other hand I do see great advantage in subsidised facilities for home purchase, and these have been one of the principal social benefits of the Singapore Provident Fund. Such a scheme is in any case being introduced in Hong Kong this year.
13.
Subject to any new ideas that emerge from the present review, I therefore think that we must look to general revenue or the money market as the sources from which to finance both recurrent expenditure and capital works to ensure that people are properly housed, with education and medical facilities within the means of all, and that incomes are maintained in infirmity, old age and the normal variety of misfortunes. I believe that the problems of obtaining what is needed for these things by increasing general revenue if necessary, to be less than those involved in obtaining them from the initiation of compulsory contributory schemes between now and the
14.
'80s.
A non-compulsory provident fund was launched a year ago by the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank with strong Government encouragement, but has attracted little interest.
The possibilities of changing the rate or content of programmes
15.
The limitations described above leave a band between the possible and impossible in which there is room for different judgements on both ultimate levels of taxation and on some of the ways in which existing or additional resources might be applied. Such debate is more or less continuous, just as the programmes themselves are constantly reviewed and rolled forward. But within this band I and my advisers always stand ready to explain, to discuss, and provided