from January to April. From May to December the
duties are mainly;-
(a) Provision of information (addresses and aames
chiefly) to the Treasury Solicitor. There are
upwards of 21,000 rated houses in the Colony and
the work of collecting the rates involves a large
part of the Treasury Solicitor's time.
(2)
(b) Personal inspection of New (or reconstructed)
houses for interin assessment, and of demolished
houses for cancellation of assessment. Thore ver O
555 assessments of new houses and 264 cancellationa
last year, evenly distributed throughout the year.
Bach of these involves a personal inspection
by the officer-in-charge Assessor's office.
(0)
29
Monthly personal inspection of vacant tenements.
Owing to the fast that throughout the European
business sections of Central Hongkong and Kowloon
Point large office buildings have separate asscesamit a
to each flat, the number of vacant tenenenta is
considerable, vis: 192 per month in 1928–9,0f these about 2/3rds are personally inspected by the a/c
Assessor's office.
These duties involve a considerable amount of
indoor work and about 3 hours a weak of outdoor work.
4. My grounds of application are:-
AA
(m) The Offices of Assessor A Batate Duty Com-
missioner are not related to one another in any
intimate relation of superiority or subordination
(Hongkong 0.0.93, 0ol.Reg.5+ (3) (a) ). They az
in fact related only in that they are both in the
one department, the Treasury. Their difference
is indicated by the fact that the office of Assessor
of Rates is best filled by a surveyor or architect
(Mr. Hing is a qualified architect) and the office
Page 30Page 31