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6.
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meet outstanding liabilities.
It is probable that a sum
of $150,000 will be required to enable the Committee to
meet their liabilities to the end of 1938 including the
repayment of an overdraft of $60,000 at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and I shall be glad to receive your authority to invite the Legislative Council to vote
this sum in due course. The Finance Committee has been
consulted informally and has agreed that assistance is necessary and that the deficit should be met from the
revenue of the Colony. This payment is recommended in
the expectation that the proposed terms of re-organization
will be agreed to and if that scheme is accepted it is
inevitable that a large increase in the regular annual
grant will be needed for an indefinite time to come, both
in order to meet the deficit on the present basis and to
pay for the improvements in the quality of the service of
these Hospitals which is expected to follow. Considerable
additional expenditure, as you are aware from my despatch 540053533/38 No.460 of 3rd June, 1938, has already had to be met by this
Government in rendering portions of the old Lai Chi Kok
prison fit to accommodate cholers patients and to relieve
the serious overcrowding of the Chinese hospitals.
12. In this connection I may mention that not long
after my arrival I appointed a committee to report upon
the whole question of the existing hospitalization of this
Colony and to recommend measures for its re-organization
and improvement. The Tung Wah hospitals, of course, come
within the scope of the committee's investigations.
13.
The matter is urgent, and I shall be glad to