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16.
Amounts which would be deducted from assessable revenue in respect of productive undertakings, if assessed on net Instead of gross receipts.
(a) Wireless telegraphy.
(alternatively shown
(b)
Waterworks.
under "municipal
(e)
Post Office.
revenue").
•
1926.
$ 68,133.29
1927.
85,612.24
263,755.04. 336,885.29
$331,688.33 422,497.53
The War office cannot
The
check these amounts. 1926 figure against (a), viz: 68,133.29, is precisely the amount of the gross receipts from "Post Office messages"; it includes more than wireless and can hardly be the amount of "net receipts" from wireless. The other figures appear to be too high; it would be expected that the sum to be deducted from gross receipts in order to obtain "net receipts" would be in the region of the amount of gross cash expenditure with additions for pension contributions and int erest on capital, but the gross cash expenditure on the Post Office (presumably inclusive of the wireless service *) was:-
1926. 1927.
2
120,848.45 134,503.48
The difference between these two figures and those given above for the Post Office and Wireless might be expected to represent broadly the pension charges and interest, and the amounts for these so arrived at seem far too high, so that the Governor appears to have deducted too much from the assessable revenue.
17.
As regards the principle involved in (A) of paragraph 15, the assessment of "net receipts" only of productive undertakings is, strictly speaking, limited to
commercial undertakings not different in character and productiveness from railways" (Treasury letter to Colonial Office or 9892/99, dated 22nd June, 1899). This method of assessment has been in the past applied to telephones and tramways (both at the Straits in 1899), an opium factory (at the Straits in 1910) and distilleries (in Ceylon in 1912). In 1897 a waterworks was so treated at Mauritius), but only after strong protest by the Home Government. The real feature of the "net receipts" principle is an endeavour to avoid burdening new construction with a heavy surcharge and thereby to remove an obstacle to Colonial development. This can be readily appreciated with railways, the more so that in 1895, when the principle obtained recognition, there were considerable plans of railway expansion. The Post Office, for all that it is a productive undertaking, has always been treated as outside the scope of any such principle.
18. L
* No separate figures are given for the Wireless Service
in the Hong Kong Blue Book.
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