Extract from the
HONG KONG TELEGRAPH
dated
17th January, 1941.
234
COLONY'S BUDGET
CALMLY and confidently the Hon. Mr H. R. Butters, the Colony's Financial Secretary, yesterday introduced before the Legislative Council a budget which, as an original estimate covering a 12-month period, is easily a record for Hongkong. The community faces the pros- pect of an expenditure of $62,- 389,776 between April 1 this year and March 31, 1942, and an envisaged deficit of $7,553,776 which is to be met by various means, including an increase in the rates of one per cent., fur- ther entertainment tax, in- creased estate duty and higher duties on liquor, as well as new taxation on table waters. All this, however, is only expected to produce about $4,000,000, and the remaining part of the deficit is to be met by increased war taxation.
One-fifth of the expenditure is to be devoted specifically to war purposes, including local civil and military defences, and a community gift of vessels valued at $5,220,000. The re- maining $50,000,000 constitutes domestic spending; for this, an effort is being made to maintain progress in social services; an infectious diseases hospital is to be built; there is to be a Fisheries Research Station and an Experimental Agricultural station in the New Territories with the avowed object of im- proving the nutrition of the Colony's population and at the same time help to make the Colony more self-supporting; two new police stations are to be constructed to meet the cry- ing need for more effective police protection in Kowloon Tong and Wongneichong; and the vexed problem of nightsoil carrying and its present dangers of spreading disease, is to be solved by the work being taken over by the Sanitary Department. A new Public Mortuary is included in the programme, as well as a disinfecting station in Kowloon. Government subsidy of the Tung Wah hospital is to be increased to $750,000, large sums of money are to be spent on an adequate cemetery for the Chinese in the New Terri- tories and, we are promised, several lakhs will be spent on road main- tenance and improvement.
At a
These then, are the provisions for the coming financial year; it will certainly not please everybody, but in these abnormal times it is a skil- ful effort to strike a happy medium which deserves commendation. time when it is vitally necessary to strain every resource to assist in the Empire's fight for an enduring cause, Government might well have been excused if it had ignored social im- provements; that the authorities, as the Hon. Mr Butters expressed it, preferred to "try and steer a middle course and have followed the golden mean of practicality as against the extremes of both ultra conservatism and radical change", is both couraging and consoling.
en-
Extra taxation was inevitable, but the end is far more important than the means, and towards that end, it is to be hoped, Hongkong will cheer- fully make its contribution.