TAY
passed
was merely guess work.
Water and Drainage Department.--We do not feel satisfied that the enormous expenditure of $282,500, already voted, on the sewerage of Victoria was a desirable one to incur, but as the work has been commenced and has therefore to be gone on with we do not disapprove of the decision of Government to sanction and carry out the Hon. O. Chadwick's proposals and plans, but we are now of opinion that, it would have been better when such decision was approved of by the Council that it should have been arrived at in such a manner as would have guarded against any possibility of any material alterations or of any changes in and departures from these plans by a change of officers.
It seems to us that it may be desirable sooner or later to amend the constitution of the Sanitary Board so as to entrust it with the supervising authority of the water supply and the drainage works, public and private alike, when the same shall be sufficiently completed.
Government Offices Extension and New Law Courts. We are not satisfied that these works are of urgent or of even pressing necessity, and we therefore recommend that they be postponed
Questions of Finance and of Expenditure are matters which fall specially within the competence of the unofficial members. No expenditure should ever be made until it has been sanctioned by the Council. Essential works already commenced and in course of construction should be systematically pushed on and completed. The unofficial members should, we submit, be consulted before any moneys for new public works are inserted in future estimates.
The value of the unofficial element lies in the direction of a right to be consulted before anything is done which will commit the colony to any serious expenditure, and in affording the public, through it, an opportunity of discussing every matter before such matter is brought into final operation.
A Public Works Committee exists, in name only.
(Signed)
P. Ryrie
C. P. Chater
J. J. Keswick
Ho Kai
T. H. Whitehead
Hongkong, 20th December, 1890.
To His Excellency, the Officer Administering the Government of Hongkong,
713.
F