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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
the Assessed Taxes will receive the most careful consideration from the Government.
The Government regrets that it does not feel able to forge the revenue to be derived from the small increase in the School fees. The increases were first suggested in 1926 and were referred by the Director of Education to the Board of Education for consideration. A Com- mittee of the Board considered the matter and its report has been printed as a Sessional Paper and has been laid on the Table to-day for the information of Honourable Members. The Board of Education accepted the recommendations of the Committee and it is these proposals which have been adopted by the Government.
There has been no general raising of school fees, and in particular there has been no increase in the fees for Vernacular Schools.
Nor have the fees for the five lower classes in King's and Queen's Colleges been raised.
The effect of the changes is to bring the fees of the Ellis Kadoorie, Waitsai and Yaumati Schools into line with the fees for the lower classes of King's and Queen's Colleges the education given being of a precisely similar character.
Apart from this, the increases have been in the fees for the higher classes which are mostly attended by the children of parents well able to afford the higher fees. Increased fees for higher classes are already well known here and elsewhere and are justified by the increased cost of the education given. Provision has been made for deserving children of poor parents by an increase in the number of free scholarships. The Government would not have agreed to increase the fees had it not been satisfied that no serious hardship is involved. The demand for the more expensive classes at King's and Queen's Colleges greatly exceeds the accommodation available and the increased fees are still well below many of the fees paid at private and grant-in-aid schools. The Government can safely promise sympathetic consideration to the claims of the grant-in-aid schools, and the sums provided show that that sympathy will have a very practical application.
Turning now to the remarks of the Honourable Member representing the Justices of the Peace, I should like to express my agreement with his tribute of praise to our predecessors for handing down to us a practically unencumbered inheritance, and he may rest assumed that every care will be taken before embarking on new enterprises which might encumber the estate.
The Honourable Member referred to the continually rising cost of living in this Colony. The Government will take note of and consider the Honourable Member's suggestion, but I fear that the increase in the cost of living is due to causes over which this Government has no control.
I regret I cannot agree with the Honourable Member's remarks on the subject of the proposed new post of an Accountant in the Supreme
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