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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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after hearing this explanation will be content with the ventilation of a very important matter and will not press his motion to a division. (Applause).
HON. MR. M. K. LO.-Before I say a word in reply I wish to ask if Your Excellency would give the Unofficial Members leave to confer for a few minutes with reference to the concluding remarks of the Colonial Secretary.
HON. SIR HENRY POLLOCK.-This was granted on a previous occasion.
H.E. THE GOVERNOR.—I would like the privilege of addressing the Council myself.
HON. SIR HENRY POLLOCK.—I beg Your Excellency's pardon.
H.E. THE GOVERNOR.-I want to thank the Honourable Member who proposed this Resolution for a most usefully critical speech. If his particular points could not have been met to the very full extent that they have been met by my Honourable colleague, the Colonial Secretary, it would of course have signified that the authorities who framed our past budgets and the Councillors who passed them were either negligent, incapable or improvident. Happily for their reputation and for the Colony's well-being the picture is not in fact so black as the Honourable Member has painted it. Its gloomy tones, I am bold to believe, are partly and largely the shadows of the dark clouds of a passing depression.
But the pragmatic value of criticism lies not in the answers given to particular points but in the general reaction which it evokes; and I can assure this Council that the Government will, so long at any rate as I am associated with it, react to Mr. Lo's two main points; firstly, that staff must be kept at the minimum compatible with efficiency; second, that the percentage of local recruits must be kept at the maximum so compatible.
Coming from the Straits Settlements I am already accustomed to find in the Unofficial Members on Finance Committee the trusty watch-dogs of the tax-payer: this is an important function and none the less salutary because they may occasionally be found barking up the wrong tree. But the mover of this resolution, in his two main points, is undoubtedly on the right scent and one that I have been following myself.
Inter-Colonial comparisons are difficult. Variations in Exchange rate here, and the complexities of Municipal, Rural Board, Education Board and Hospital Board finance in the Straits Settlements, make a comparison between the two Far-Eastern Colonies particularly difficult. But if my calculation is correct that the Straits Settlements salaries bill, exclusive of pensions and allowances, is 46 per cent.
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