1
Review
1970 was, by Hong Kong's rather unusual standards, a compara- tively uneventful year. There are no dramatic events and no major natural disasters to record in this review. Nonetheless, that does not mean to say that it was a dull year: no year can be dull in so vital and dynamic a community. It was on the contrary a busy year and a year full of interest; a year of development and progress in the pattern characteristic of the Colony's post-war history. It was a year of consolidation, and of planning for the future.
This was particularly noticeable in the field of social services. Attitudes towards the search for solutions to the social problems of Hong Kong have significantly changed. The piecemeal approach of former years and the practice of identifying and meeting the most immediately urgent areas of need, when the need was everywhere so great, have been overtaken by a growing determination to co- ordinate_more effectively the work of the diverse professions con- cerned and to ensure that an appropriate share of the Colony's resources is applied to the development in a coherent manner of those social services which are most generally needed by the com- munity as a whole.
In this task the first thought must be for those most in want. In recent years it has become increasingly clear that a comprehensive scheme of public assistance is one of the essential foundations for further social development in Hong Kong, and that the introduc- tion of such a system had become practicable. During 1970 expert advice was sought, and plans drawn up and approved, for a new system of cash grants to replace the present arrangements, based mainly on the issue of foodstuffs to needy persons. All families and individuals who have lived in Hong Kong for more than one year will now become eligible for assistance under the new scheme, excepting only able-bodied adults capable of employment, and it is intended to review the scales of assistance from time to time to