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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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Directors would go before their shareholders with unmixed feelings of pride and confidence.
On the spur of the moment I have similar feelings, but will they stand searching inquiries-can we go before the tax-payers of the Colony and say "the finances of the Colony have in the past been administered to the best advantage," or is the Colony rather in the position of one who has year by year sold his wares, spent most of his profits, and kept the balance, but is without sufficient wares to do future successful trading-in other words, have the Government in the past so operated the Colony's finances as to keep up with the times and the progress of the Colony or are we now faced with large capital expenditure which we shall have difficulty in meeting; is our stock in trade or some of it either out of date or beyond repair?
On a careful retrospect of the position I am convinced that the matter is one for most serious consideration-in fact I go so far as to say that to bring our stock in trade up-to-date will require the expenditure of very large sums. How are we going to provide for this?
The Honourable the Colonial Secretary tells us that the Govern- ment has adopted a forward policy in its Budget for 1930, admittedly, he says, in services rather than in material works. I have scanned the draft Estimates and the Public Works Extraordinary Report for support of this forward policy and can only say I can find little support for his statement. Taking the draft Estimates as a whole, I describe the general position to be that nothing more than ordinary current expenditure and usual development work has been provided for-nothing more than one would ordinarily expect to see in any normal year.
Certain minor public works are provided for, but they would occur in any normal year.
Many of the great crying needs of the Colony are not even men- tioned; in fact, I find, in the words of the Honourable Colonial Secre- tary, that none of "my favourite schemes" have been included. I omit, of course, the water question because that is a matter which must be put in a category by itself and has already been fully dealt with.
It needs no further comment from me, save that no effort can be too great to avert a recurrence of the crisis we experienced this year.
The Honourable the Colonial Secretary consoles us with the fact that we can finance the contemplated increases in the Estimates without recourse to increased taxation, a very satisfactory state of affairs, but it certainly appears to me having regard to the general tenor of the Estimates that such cannot be the position much longer.
I will not dwell on the water question, Government Civil Hos- pital, the Gaol, the Playing Grounds, Port Facilities, markets, the uncompleted part of the 70 feet road between Causeway Bay and Tai-