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He also
achieve civic conscience to any extent unless Hong Kong was cut off
from the rest of the world which,of course was impossible.
pointed out that the Social Welfare Department had been functioning
for less than 4 years and that it did not exist before the war. 12%
of the Colony's revenue was spent on education and the number of children
in government schools had been doubled in the last year. Fifteen
Government schools were being built or reconstructed and the largest
of the new schools would take 1,000 and 800 students respectively.
They had also opened a college for training rural school teachers.
of the main difficulties in Hong Kong was to find the necessary staff
and it was only a month ago that they had been able to get a Registrar
of Co-operatives. Hong Kong's Colonial Development and Welfare allocation
was £1,000,000, about £300,000 was earmarked for development in the
New Territories and most of the rest would be devoted to housing for
lower paid workers. The Hong Kong Bank had also advanced money for
schemes for the provision of houses which would meet the needs of the
#
One
white collar class, but had felt unable to do so for the dwellings for
the poorer class people as they were not a good security. He thought
it was in this connection that Bishop Hall had brought the housing
situation to the notice of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Bank would
not agree to advance money for one of these schemes if Bishop Hall took
any part in its management and this annoyed him.
The Secretary of State raised the question of tuberculosis which
was a very serious menace to health in Hong Kong and connected very
closely with overcrowding. He wanted to know how Hong Kong tuberculosis
figures compared with those of, for example, Singapore.
Mr. Chinn said
we would have the figures looked up.
The Governor explained that Sir Patrick Abercrombie had prepared a
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