}
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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will prove an under-estimate. The estimate for assessed rates for 1938 comes to, roughly, about $6,000,000, 2/17ths of which, referrable to water supply, amount to $706,000 odd. This sum, together with $1,900,000, makes the total of $2,606,000 odd, as revenue for water, which is some $172,000 more than last year.
The Economic Commission Report, Chapter 10, paragraph 35, states as follows:-
"Furthermore, we are of the opinion that the present system of aggregating the revenue and expenditure on water with the general revenues of the Colony tends to obscure the situation regarding water charges and to reverse the expressed policy of Government that water should not be made a source of revenue. We are in full agreement with this policy and we recommend that, to ensure its observance the water supply of this Colony should be re-organised as a separate Municipal undertaking under Government control and should be kept entirely separate from the Public Works or any other Government department.'
99.
I do most respectfully concur with the above view, and urge that the whole Water Department may be re-organised so as to function as a separate authority, charged with the duty of having proper balance sheets and profit and loss accounts, so that the public may be in a position to judge how far Government has carried out its intention of not making any money out of water supplied to the inhabitants.
I notice that under Head 20 (Police Force), the total vote for this Department was under 22 millions for 1935: it rose to just over 234 millions in 1936: under the Revised Estimates for 1937 it was $3,280,000 odd, and the Estimate for 1938 is now $3,307,000 odd. I know that the Colony does not grudge any necessary expenditure to keep up an efficient Police Force, and I should like to state that the Chinese Community has noted with pleasure that Government has appointed 10 Cantonese Sub-Inspectors. I feel that my Hon. friend the I.G.P. and the Force under him are to be congratulated on having successfully put an end to the series of impudent robberies which occasioned the community so much concern a few months ago. But from the point of view of mobilising the forces of law and order for the prevention of crime, I have often wondered, as many people in the community have done, whether the time of the Police officers cannot be better employed in certain directions. I refer particularly to the arrest and prosecution of hawkers. They are, of course, easy prey. Any constable who is hard-up for cases can quite easily take the line of least resistance by arresting a hawker on some charge, whether real or imaginary.
The following figures are gleaned from the I.G.P.'s Reports for 1935 and 1936:-
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