Dodwell
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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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substantial proportion of the tax collected from European British companies, and the great majority of their shareholders are in the United Kingdom.
Finally, Sir, I realise only too well that opposition to Income Tax at the present moment sounds extremely unpatriotic, no doubt particularly so to my Honourable friend the Acting General Officer Commanding, and the Services generally, who pay their 7/6d.
So far as the European Britons in the Colony are concerned, I am confident that they are fully prepared to accept their responsibility in this matter and that all would gladly make their contribution through the medium of an Income Tax, provided that reasonable allowances are made, and that the tax is for the duration of the war. From what my Chinese colleagues have said, it is clearly not the payment of the contribution to which they object, but to the method of its collection. Conceivably, of course, the danger of a flight of capital may prove an exaggerated bogey. We undoubtedly have a magnificent harbour and many attractions and facilities to counteract the imposition of the tax, but from my thirty years' experience of how little it takes to upset the delicate economic equilibrium of this Colony, I am con- vinced that there is a grave element of risk, and that in view of the difficulties of trading we are likely to have to contend with, it is one we should not take unless the Committee now in session can make the Bill palatable to the Chinese community. (Applause).
HON. MR. LEO D'ALMADA E CASTRO, JNR.-Your Excellency, -In view of present circumstances I do not propose to criticise the Colony's ordinary budget insofar as its public works expenditure is concerned, because at a time like this, when, as I believe, economy should be the watchword, whatever disappointment one may feel over the programme of public works must be borne in silence. But for the same reason I would be failing in my duty were I to pass over the figures connected with administration costs.
More than one Unofficial member has in past years called these figures astronomical, and the epithet is more apt to-day than ever. One realises that with a growing Colony must of necessity come a certain increase in the personnel of administration and consequently in its cost. The objection lies not to this but rather to the fact that in recruiting its officers, Government does not give the Hong Kong man the chance he deserves. I had occasion last year to complain that local men were not employed in the service as much as they should be. If reform in that direction was desirable then, its need to-day is more evident than ever, on the score both of fairness to the community and of keeping down expense. Government might well consider also the payment on a dollar basis of those of its junior officers who are engaged locally and who, while on probation, are paid in dollars. In their case there is no justification for an automatic transfer to sterling when they have proved satisfactory. Conditions