Original rig for
for action 53707/36 (Salary Levy)
on
492.
268
AIR MAIL.
REC
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
36
HỒNG KONG,
19th August, 1936.
CY
E:CA.
sir,
I have the honour to inform you that, in
accordance with long established local procedure which
hardly consorts with Colonial Regulation 194 but has
distinct advantages at a time of financial stringency,
I have been presiding daily over an Estimates Committee
(consisting of the acting Colonial Secretary, the Colonial
Treasurer and myself) which has scrutinized the draft Budget
item by item with the collaboration of each Head of Department
in his turn.
2.
It is distressingly clear to me that a large
deficit on the 1937 budget is inevitable. Not only have we
to translate sterling salaries and Crown Agents' indents into
local currency at a much depreciated dollar, but the
completion of three major Public Works (the Central British
School, the queen Mary liospital and the Stanley Gaol) will
entail inevitable increases in staff, equipment and annual
maintenance, because all three works represent not merely
replacements but enlargements of the existing institutions.
Moreover the siting of the new Hospital and Gaol on the
rural South side of this Island necessarily involves costly
transport to and from the urban areas on the Northern side.
My Executive Council has agreed, and the public appears
reconciled, to the closing of the present popular Victoria
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
W.G.A. ORMSBY-GORE, P.C., ".P.
C.
&C.,
&c.