1947
10.
10
395
which on conscientious grounds
are
precluded from any
share of the public funds voted for Education,
endeavour by voluntary effort to teach about 1000 children in daily average attendance.
9.
On the whole, therefore, in
this Colony about 1 in 51 only of the inhabitants is being educated.
In my own experience I cannot call to mind any instance in which a comparatively large education grant did so very little for the class to which such funds are generally devoted. The admirable Government scheme in the Bahamas assisted in educating 1 in 12 of the inhabitants. Even in Barbados, where the population is not two per cent greater than in Hong Kong, there were over 14,000 children on the school rolls, and about 9000 in average daily attendance: that is, 1 in 18 of the population being educated (Parliamentary Papers c.1539 page 156).
11.
Some statistical tables prepared before my arrival in Hong Kong, and which I recently transmitted to Your Lordship (Despatch No. 35, 15th June), show that, for the last three years crime has been increasing and the number of recommittals of old offenders has