10 -
by the reduction in the period qualifying for home leave
from 4 to 4 years.
Provision has also been made for
granting rent allowances to Chinese Senior Revenue Officers
and 1st Class Revenue Officers of ten years service on the
same basis as the grants to Chinese Sergeant Majors and 1st Class Constables respectively in the Police Force.
$3,000 has been inserted under Special Expenditure
for the purchase of a motor car. This is required in
connection with the control of distilleries. At present
the train and motor bus have to be relied on, which involves
much waste of time. A motor cycle and side car would not
be suitable as it will be necessary to transport one European
and two Chinese Revenue Officers, as well as bulky materials
and samples of spirit. Provision has also been made, but under the Harbour Department on page 26 of the printed
Estimates, for a motor boat at a cost of $7,000.
able amount of opium smuggling is done by junks and sampans
on the Kowloon side of the harbour, where there is no definite
water front as there is on this side of the harbour, and the
occasional hiring of a launch has proved unsatisfactory, chiefly because it robs the raids and searches of the
essential element of surprise.
Head 13 Harbour Department.
A
consider-
Apart from the increase in the staff of the Marine Surveyor's Office, to which I have already referred and
which is fully dealt with in the sessional paper on the subject, there are only minor increases under personal
emoluments. Provision is made for the crews of the two
now launches and motor boat which it is proposed to build next year, and there is also inserted on page 30 of the
printed Estimates one Boatswain for the Government slipway
at
96