248
plan to provide education for the 30,000 children who were not attending
school at present. Mr. Fisher considered that his plan could be put into
operation within the existing financial resources of the Colony and that the
Colony could afford to spend more on education.
Mr. Hall drew attention to the fact that in 1945 the number of children
in school was 4,000 whereas by 1950 it had risen to 150,000 and entailed the
rehabilitation and construction of a large number of schools.
Mr. Cook said that both the Secretary of State and he had discussed
Social problems with Sir A. Grantham last summer and were satisfied that the
Governor was fully alive to the problem and that Hong Kong's efforts had been
considerable. Mr. Cook mentioned the difficulty about controlling immigration
and the problem of preventing Hong Kong's social services from being swamped
by Chinese coming into Hong Kong to make use of them. He thought that in the
difficult circumstances Hong Kong were doing as much as could be reasonably
expected of them and the various Advisory Committees here seemed satisfied.
There were numerous political difficulties against over-ruling the unofficial
members in an attempt to increase taxation.
Mr. Sidebotham then dealt with the recent request for access to the
London Loan market to finance the Tai Lam Chung reservoir project and said that
Hong Kong had been informed that a London loan was out of the question until
Hong Kong had been able to demonstrate that it was unable to provide the
necessary finance itself by utilizing local resources, including increased
It had therefore been taxation, to the greatest extent reasonably possible.
made clear to Hong Kong that it could not expect further help from H.M.G.
Mr. Sidebotham then went on to discuss until it was prepared to help itself.
the "American Embargo" and said that despite Mr. Clarke's visit to Washington,
no relaxation had been achieved. After discussion with Sir T. Lloyd and
Mr. Paskin and other Departments (Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, etc.) a "high level" approach to Mr. Atcheson was contemplated and the Chiefs of
We did not Staff were taking parallel action through their own channels. know, however, how successful this approach would be but meanwhile we did know that imports from the U.S.A. had already gone down by 40% and unless alternative sources of raw materials were found, and this would be difficult, some Hong Kong industries would have to close down and this would affect
/Hong