3.
82
See
$3789/36.
increases of duty under the Stamp Ordinance and in the annual
fees for motor licences) I am satisfied that the limit to
remunerative enhancement of taxes has been all but reached, and
that any appreciable reduction of next year's foreseen deficit
must be engineered on the expenditure and not on the revenue side.
5.
As regards an income tax I am fully convinced that
even a mere suggestion of the idea at the present juncture would
be a mistake of the first magnitude; it would not only provoke
universal opposition but would at once dry up the fount of
philanthropy which at present feeds the Tung Wah Hospitals, the
Po Leung Kuk, the District Watch Force, St. John's Ambulance
Brigade and other indispensable institutions and social services
which Hong Kong is fortunate in having financed by private
subscription instead of from public funds.
6.
I am glad to say that the balance on our loan funds
will be sufficient to meet in great part one urgent and unforeseen
liability. The present Central Market, completed in 1895, has
recently had to be shored up in order to postpone temporarily (while plans for a new one are being got out) an imminent
collapse that cannot be economically averted. The replacement
is likely to cost something between half and three quarters of
a million dollars, but I will address you separately in the
matter when a properly calculated estimate can be given. Although this liability has fallen upon the Colony at a most untoward juncture it need not be too greatly deplored, as the doomed building is dark, dirty and cramped in its accommodation and would anyhow have had to be pulled down in the interests of
hygiene at a not far distant date.
7.
But even after setting a new Central Market against
Loan Account and after a radical combing and pruning of departmental proposals I find myself faced with an estimated revenue of roughly twenty-eight and three-quarter million