3
2 Jo hotel 9 July 1928.
It remains to be decided whether
the Commission should be a local or an
independent one. Sir C. Clementi in
conversation adhered to his original recommenda-
tion that a local Commission should be appointed,
his idea being to obtain the services of three
unofficial business men, presided over by the
Chief Justice. He made, however, some damaging
admissions which to my mind very much strengthen
the arguments for an independent Commission
advanced in the attached memorandum.
For (1), he thought that there was no
possibility of the Commission being delayed in
their work by not being able to give their whole
time to it since "it would be composed of business
men who would be anxious to get back to their
business". This is exactly what one fears is
likely to give rise to hasty and ill-considered
decisions.
(2) He said also that one of the
advantages of a local Commission would be that the
members serving on it would be already familiar
with local conditions and would no doubt have
their own schemes for tackling them. In illustra-
tion of this point he said that the local Managing
Director of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, whom he
hoped to obtain as a member, was very proud of the
scheme that he had worked out for the Bank and was
the
convinced that it would be/most suitable one for
the Colony. This I fear might well be a
disadvantage