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REVIEW
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desirable to have been able to concentrate all donations and allo- cate them to the best advantage in accordance with a co-ordinated plan; but it was soon apparent that this was not possible. This point is emphatically not made in any spirit of complaint. Donors obviously have a personal interest in the disposition of the sums they give and they quite understandably wish to exercise a degree of choice over the projects which their gifts support.
Hong Kong also had to adjust its plans to the fact that it might receive money in an almost bewildering number of ways; for example, donations might be made by other Governments to the Hong Kong Government; by private firms or individuals to the Hong Kong Government; by Governments or private agencies abroad to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for distribution for specific purposes or generally; by other Gov- ernments to voluntary agencies in Hong Kong for purposes which may or may not have been previously discussed with the Hong Kong Government; by voluntary agencies abroad directly to their counterparts or correspondents in Hong Kong; by National Com- mittees to the Hong Kong Government or to voluntary agencies here; and, indeed, according to almost any permutation or com- bination of these channels. Furthermore, some donors might prefer to offer gifts in kind rather than in cash.
The Government had, therefore, to take these two different sets of factors into account when considering how to make the best possible use of the opportunity generously provided by the World Refugee Year movement. It was necessary to discard certain initially attractive ideas immediately. The selection of one single large project, for example, had obvious objective merits, but it was impossible to entertain this suggestion both because no one knew the amount that might be received, and because of the desire of donors not only to choose their channel of contribution but also particular projects. It would have been inappropriate to devote any substantial part of the funds received to housing, for the simple reason that the Government has already formally under- taken responsibility for that part of this vast commitment which cannot be met by private enterprise. The real obstacle to speeding up the housing programme is not so much lack of money as the shortage of formed sites and the limits of constructional capacity. Other ideas which would have been of value to Hong Kong
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