.
The COLONIAL TREASURER-Your Excel leney, the hon. member opposite in making observations on the abstract of expenditure and in referring to the miscellaneous services argued that in 1908 the actual expenditure was so much in excess of the estimate, and that as the estimate was exceeded again this year there was an actual increase of something like three lakhs, I would refer the hon. member to page 36. Amongst those items is an item for loss on subsidiary coin, and I may inform him that in 1908 the loss on this was $164,674 and last year the loss was $134,000, while the estimated loss was only $36,000. The loss next year on subsidiary coinage will not be anything like the loss this year, as in
when your speech
this Bill was brought before the Council, sir, you mentioned that the principle of demonetisation would be no longer carried out, but the principle of selling coin at the market rate, which meant, of course, only a five per cent. loss, whereas if we demonetise the amount varies from 14 to 17 per cent. on its face value.
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365
October 25, 1909.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
disagree to some extent with the hon. member street would be relieved of a long-standing I hope our returns will continue to improve immediately on my right. He seemed to think congestion and a considerable improvement and increase when we learn the system best that land sales for a few years would not increase, would be effected.” Your predecessor, sir. fitted to the circumstances. I will not deny but I think that with the return of pros-recommended to the Secretary of State that a that I do not anticipate, as I said in a memorar- perity in the Hongkong trade and that of tower should be added to the Post Office, and a dum laid before the Council on the subject.cf China, and with the irksome sanitary regulations clock erected in that tower in order, of course, opium, that it is not improbable that forcible removed, resulting in a restoration of confid- that the clock might serve a really useful pur-restriction of opium may tend to encourage ence among the Chinese people and their pose and be seen from the harbour, but stated at the use of alcoholic drinks among the Chinese families, that We shall find the demand the same time that opinion on the subject here. I heard with great pleasure what was for residential areas very great, and in of the removal of the old tower was divided, said by the senior unofficial member, who hope. the near future I anticipate they will be dis- aud that he proposed to leave it where fully believes and trusts that his countrymen posed of by the Government and that it stood for the present. He added that will not be so induced, but I speak as one more Chinese will invest more money in landed if in a few years there was further objec- or less guided by the teaching of history. We property in the Colony. In connection with tion on the score of obstruction
due
to know that in all nations the use of some the Sanitary Department I must express increased traffic in Queen's Road, its removal stimulant is universal. We know that when that regret that in the retrenchment proposals a would again be considered. He expressed the stimulant has been withdrawn some substitute capable officer has been pensioned off, but I personal opinion that with the transfer of the is inevitable The hon. member at the end of the refrain from saying anything about it, as one Post Office and Supreme Court to this new table (hon. Mr. Stewart) in speaking on that sub- of my hon. colleagues is going to ask a question location, the traffic of Queen's Road would ject said he hoped and I echo his wish-that later on. It seems to me a pity that a man of rather diminish than increase. At the begin- the Chinese would not seek a new stimulant such great experience and one 80 much ning of this year when arrangements had to be to replace opium He is a student of history, respected by Chinese should be pensioned off made for adding a clock tower to the Post and I would remind him of the description the service list of the Colony. (Applause.) Office the question of the removal of the old given by Smollett of the state of the English, tower again came up. By your Excellency's if I remember aright, in the early part of the direction I put in the newspapers, after, I may- 17th century. He presents a picture of the mention, the removal had been approved by the extreme degradation which the lower classes in Executive Council, a short paragraph to the England had fallen into at that time by the effect that it was intended to demolish the old use of what is called Geneva, a kind of gin Clock Tower. The object was to give the imported in vast quantities into West Africa, public notice of what was going to happen, as and used in very low class houses, such as opium the question had been in abeyance for some time, dens are supposed to be in England. No and to give those who favoured the retention of substantial decrease of this vice was effected by the Clock Tower an opportunity of expressing any of the methods instituted to control it until their views again on the subject. You have at wholesome class of beer replaced this deleterious present, sir, under consideration whether in the gin. In this way that evil was got under present state of the fiunaces it would be worth coutrol. I can say, therefore, that in my own while erecting a costly tower at the Post Office. personal view I welcome the introduction of these Till that question is decided, the question of the liquor duties, not only as a legitimate form of removal of the existing tower does not press. revenue, but as possibly a means of checking At the same time, as the Government is at pre- an evil whic I fear might arise in this Colony. sent advised, it considers that the Clock Tower (Applause.) In that connection it may be in- is an obstruction, and cannot bind itself to make teresting to the Council if I quote figures which any promise as to the indefinite retention of I looked up this morning as to the comparative the old tower on its present site.
incidence of liquor duties in Hongkong and the United Kingdom. I find that the duties which we propose to collect stand at nine per cent. of the ordinary revenue and 8.7 per cent. of the total revenue of the Colony, whereas in the United Kingdom the revenue derived from liquor duties is 28 per cent. of the whole revenue derived from taxes and 23 per cent. of the total revenue.
The figures are: Revenne derived from taxes, £125 mil. lions, total revenue £151 millions. Revenue derived from liquor, £35 millions. I am at a loss to understand to what the hon. mem- ber who represents the Chamber of Com- merce was alluding when he said he feared that I had inferred that the imposition of liquor duties would decrease the Imperial grant in respect of the loss on opium. I had no such idea in my mind when I introduced the Budget. The next point raised by the hon. member was the allusion I made to a possible increase of fines and forfeitures, but he will observe ou looking at the figures in the Budget that the anticipated increase is based on the actual receipts for the last year. The increase is based on the actual amount received on that ac- conut during the last financial year and not on any possible further increase due to liquor duties. I need not deal with the complaints that the Estimates framed by the Public Works are sometimes insufficent to meet actual expenditure. That has already been dealt with by the Hon. Director of Public Works, and I think that that is a condition of things with which the government of every Colony is more or less familiar. Certainly it has been my own experience. You must remember that when the Estimates which are presented to this Council are first framed and receive the sanction of the Council there is stil a further process to be undergone. They are referred Home, and if a work is of considerable magnitude it is submitted to the consulting engineers, and it not infrequently happens that these consulting engineers sug gest alterations of importance, possibly of vital importance to the stability and suc-.
tho cess of
work. And in most cases those alterations are responsible for part of the increase. This was the case with the Law Courts. I am unable to give the positive assurance asked for, that the Law Courts and Post Office will be completede arly in 1911. I can only hope that the Director of Public Works' forcast will be fullfilled.
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The DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS-I would like to make a few remarks in reply to the speech of the hon member who criticised public works. He referred specially to the increase in the estimates for the Law Courts and the Post Office and the increased expenditure on the original estimates of $400,000 or $500, 0. in 1907 the figures were there, so I conclude that the hon. member thinks he is paying too much for his whistle. I can only say that those buildings work out at 100 per cubic foot, which is quite cheap; that class of building at Home works out at 1/2. In his comparison of these buildings with the one he referred to, and which I was going to say was not in the same street, I might mention that that building was only a brick structure, although I admit that it is of good design and a credit to the Colony. The question of delay was dealt with three years ago. It was pointed out that buildings of this, size have taken from seven to nine years to build in this Colony, such as St. George's Building and the Hotel Mansions. It was stated that the Law Courts would be completed at the end of three years and I have no reason to doubt that it will be ready for occupation by the end of 1910.
That was
The COLONIAL SECRETARY-The question of the removal of the Clock has been under discussion, and perhaps it will be useful if I very briefly review the history of the question. Of course, it is obvious that the Tower originally stood on the water front. In 1901 the Praya reclamation being completed and a large pier projected from it, Sir Henry Blake recommended that the new tower should be erected at the base of Blake Pier. approved, but the project was abandoned owing to financial reasons. In 1904 2 then unofficial member of this Council, Mr. R. Shewan, in criticising the Estimates, asked the Director of Public Works when he going to remove the Clock Tower. In the following year another unofficial member, Mr. Gershom Stewart, spoke as follows: "If your Excellency would further take the Clock Tower by the hand and lead it down towards the water front and endow it with a large clean new face so that it could pass the time of day to every ship in the harbour, a busy
was
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HIS EXCELLENCY-Gentlemen,I will en- deavour as briefly as I can to answer the various points made in the speeches of the unofficial members. The hon. member who spoke first opened with several questions regarding the revenue derived from opium, and the hon. mem- ber at the end of the table added more definite questions as to whether I had communicated with the Secretary of State, and whether any reply had been received from him as to the sub- stantial part of the direct loss on opium the Home Government promised to restore. He also referred to the fact that the Government had said that it was in difficulty in proceeding with the Estimates until such time as we should know what that sum would be, and com- mented on the fact that although the Estimates had now been produced, we still did not know.. The facts jare briefly, that as soon as I knew the amount of the opium tender I telegraphed to the Secretary of State, and have not yet had a reply from him. The Estimates in the meantime had to be proceeded with, and you will recollect hat in speaking on the subject of the new liquor duties told the Council that the original resolution to increase licence fees would not have produced sufficient revenue to meet our deficit, and the Govern- ment withdrew that resolution and at the in- stance of unofficial members duties on liquor were instituted for increased fees with the result that we now expect to have sufficient revenue to make good the deficit of last year and also the loss on opium. The hon. member said that the outstanding and salient feature of the Budget this year was that it was founded on 21 guess. That is so. We had no previous experience to go upon to enable us to forecast with any precision the amounts likely to be derived from the liquor duty. We can, however, form some rough estimate, more or less parallel to the case. The liquor duties in Singapore have guided us to some extent in the amount we have put down in the Estimates for next year. The hon. member also reminded me that I had said that I hoped in 1911 we should be able to meet our increased liabilities ou account of the railway by a larger return from, amongst other things, the liquor duties. That amount will accrue largely from better collection, that is to say, that during the coming year we have got to form and organise system which is new to this Colony, and