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HONG KONG. LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
hundred and sixty million seven hundred and fifty-one thousand six hundred and sixty-five dollars to the Public Service of the financial year ending 31st March, 1947." He said:
Your Excellency, I would in the first place express my regret that it has not been possible to introduce these Estimates earlier. I will not weary Honourable Members with a recital of the difficul- ties but I can assure them that it is not easy to produce even ap- proximate Estimates after a gap of four years under the conditions which have obtained. There were no standards of comparison by which costs could be estimated, for conditions are now vastly different from those of 1941. The lack of a Government Printing Office has contributed very materially to the delays as obviously a private firm cannot be expected to suspend all oter work in order to speed up a particular task for one customer.
For these reasons the final proofs of several Heads of the Estimates have still not been received so to my great regret it has not been possible to furnish Honourable Members with copies of the Estimates before this meeting. Your Excellency was how- ever most anxious that the first reading of the Appropriation Bill should be taken to-day in order that the Estimates could be con- sidered in Select Committee as soon as they are ready. A copy both of the Estimates and of an explanatory memorandum which I have prepared and which explains in some detail the principal variations in comparison with 1941 will be in the hands of Honour- able Members before the second reading of this Bill is taken.
With this introduction I will now say a word or two on the general financial position before I turn to the Estimates themselves.
Honourable Members know only too well the state to which this Colony has been reduced by the Japanese attack and the four years of enemy occupation which followed it. The effects are painfully evident wherever one looks. There is so much to be done in the way of repairs and re-equipment and the sums required are very substantial indeed. Rehabilitation cannot be a gradual pro- cess. To be effective it must be carried out with the greatest possible speed so our repair programme must be the maximum which can be efficiently supervised by the staff available.
If this then is to be our policy, our expenditure for two and possibly three years will bear no relation to our revenue. This year our expenditure is estimated to amount to rather more than three times our revenue. The apparent gap between revenue and expenditure can be reduced by meeting as much rehabilitation ex- penditure as possible from loan funds. This is the normal proce- dure but it is only effective when it results in the balance of ex- penditure not greatly exceeding the revenue. This year however,
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