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I understand that the proposal is (on the normal lines) that a person cannot be elected unless he is qualified to be a voter. Further, to be a voter, he person must have either ate qualification,
Be or appear on the retere list (unless he is within one of the exempted classes). To be ea the- Foters' list, Section 3 of the Jury Ordinance 1887, reads as follows:- "Every male person between the ages of 21 and 60 years, being of sound mind and not afflicted with deafness, blindness, or other such infirmity, who is a good and sufficient person resident within the Colony, and is not ignorant of the English language, shall be qualified and liable to serve as a juror...
Except therefore where there is en Zappropriate qualification, the proposals would apparently exclude from the Franchise females, persons afflicted with blindness, deafness or other like infirmity, and those ignorant of the English language, how-ever well they speak, read and write Chinese. Is this the intention? I do not know whata"good and sufficient person" is, and perhaps we need not bother about that).
Staff.
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I assume there will be no question of compulsorily transferring anyone from Government service to the service of the Municipality. Mr. Hazelrigg, when I saw him the other day, referred particularly to the post of Town Clerk. His view is that it is important to obtain a person experienced, as a Town Clerk, in• Local Government, including elections, and said that he thought it would be worth paying a high salary for the right man. But unless the sum offered is very large indeed, I imagine there will be very great difficulty in obtaining a suitable candidate from this country on a temporary basis. No Town Clerk is likely to throw up an appointment here to go to Hong Kong for a few years with the possibility of returning to this country to find no post available for him. The only hope would, I think, be to obtain the services of a retired manøy
who is about' in retire.
With regard to Part A, paragraph 7 of (24), I presume the Governor means that nominating bodies should appoint their members without any intervention by the Governor. I do not know any great objection, but it would not be unusual to kx give official authorities the right to nominate members, but to require the actual instrument of appointment to be signed by the Governor.
Part B of (24) I feel somewhat doubtful about the comment on Point 13. The whole of Hong Kong is, I believe, Crown land, and it would appear to be hardly appropriate to ask the Municipality to pay for sites leased to them.
With regard to immovable property, surely it will be correct to transfer free of cost, things acquired by the Government for use in connection with the functions to be transferred to the Municipality.
With regard to Point 19 Mr. Hazelrigg tells me
/that