PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTIC.O. 882
لسل سياسيا
9
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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The honourable member states that the private income of persons in the United Kingdon amounts by the estimate of one gentleman to one thousand million pounds, We will assume the latter, and by the estimate of another to two thousand millions
He stated although the divergence shows how very arbitrary the calculation must be that this income was equivalent to a capital sum privately owned in the United Now surely, gentlemen, that is in Kingdom of hity thousand millions sterling itself obviously wrong, for we know that a great part of that privately owned property is nivested outside the United Kingdom, and its security does not there fore depend on the defence of the British Isles Turning to his estimate of the privately owned property in this Colony, which he places at 25 millions sterling. I In the first place, the estimate hould imagine that was very much under the mark excludes Government property, and Government property is the property of the tax
It follows that it took no count of the ratio of that Government payer at large
Now this ratio is a very vital point in the argument, and property to the population I have no douly whatever that it is enormously greater in this Colony than it is in The United Kingdom We have here a railway which has cost us, as you know, upwards of one million sterling; we have reservoirs both at Tytam and at Kowloon which have cost very large sums indeed, besides Government buildings and other property The value of these per head of population is, I should think, vastly greater than the similar value per capitum in England.
I am therefore compelled to differ fundamentally from the conclusions at which the honourable member arrived. I do not think it is proved that we are taxed four times as heavily as in the United Kingdom My own belief is that it is just the other way
The next argument which my honourable friend brought forward was the cost He commenced ∙t defence with reference to the value of the property to be defended. by saying that the value of imports and exports passing through this Colony were That is an absolutely arbitrary assumption. about 50 million sterling per annum Being a free port we are unable to produce any statistics, because it is at present perfectly open to any vessel passing through this port to declare or not declare the value of its cargo
We are hoping, by the way, to introduce some greater precision in that matter in the future But assuming the figure given by the honourable member to be correct, it represents the total value of imports and exports for a whole year It is not the value on any one particular day on which you are calculating the wealth of the Colony which has to be defended.
But even if we accepted the general lines of argument, I do not see that it follows that if this Colony were proved to pay a larger proportion per head for its defence than the average citizen of the United Kingdom, that that would of necessity be an injustice The fortunes that have been made in this Colony, are, I presume, due to its position as a port on an ocean highway. The reason that European and Chinese merchants come to this Colony is because its geographical position makes it favour- able to trade, and if it is also a vulnerable position it follows that you must pay more for its defence I should conceive that if you put the material property owned by the taxpayer, either individually or collectively, at something like 50 million sterling you would not he very far from the mark, and that sum divided by the military contribution gives a rate of 2 per cent. insurance premium. With regard to this question of defence. I may point out that the adequacy of defence depends upon geographical position, upon sea power, and upon the value of the territory and property to be defended; and any arbitrary calculation arrived at by dividing the revenue by the population, or the cost of the troops into the value of property, does not take into consideration all the really vital facts.
I turn with much pleasure to a point on which I find myself in full agreement with my honourable friend, and, indeed, the ability which he has displayed in going into these figures makes it very disagrecable to find myself at variance with his general conclusions. He said, that as part of the Empire to which were all proud to belong, we wished to pay a fair and just proportion of its defence, and those words were echoed by the senior Unofficial Member and by the seconder of the resolution. I am myself in a difficult position in this matter, because, as you know from my reply to questions asked at our last meeting, the Secretary of State deprecated my laying on the table the papers asked for which contained my views and calculations. being so, it is impossible for me to explain those views and calculations verbally. In the debate in October, 1908, I gave the general purport of them, and the subsequent investigations which I made only tended to confirm more strongly the views I then expressed.
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It was a somewhat strange coincidence, of which I was not aware until to-day. that while I spoke at the very end of October, 1908, on this subject, the Governor of the Straits Settlements made a not dissimilar speech a week or two later, in November of the same year He laid before the Council papers containing correspondence with the Secretary of State on the subject, and he in very strong terms condemned, as I have, the method of assessment I am in full agreement with my honourable friend who seconded the motion that the method of assessment is hopelessly illogical (Applause.) I was glad also to observe that the Governor of the Straits took the view which I have myself advanced, in regard to loan expenditure, viz., that the revenue raised for the service of a loan to provide interest and sinking fund-ought not to be assessed to military contribution.
In the circumstances, gentlemen, I find I am compelled to limit myself to the somewhat disagreeable and futile task of endeavouring to show that the arguments advanced by my honourable friend are open to much criticism, and that the conclu- sions at which he arrives are not, in my opinion, justified. For the rest, I am unable at the present moment to lay any constructive policy before you further than what I have already said in the debate of October, 1908. For my own part I think that it is much the best course in dealing with this question to lay aside all futile comparisons with taxation in the United Kingdom, and to place ourselves face to face with the real issues. They are very simple. Are we paying too much for the military contri- bution, at a time when every nation of the earth is groaning under increased taxation for defence, and when we pay a little under one-third of the cost of the defence of this Colony! The second important question is: Is our land defence adequate as we are entitled to demand that it should be? I am not speaking to order, but as an honest man I am bound to say clearly and definitely that I do not myself believe that the resolution which is placed before the Council is one which would be to the advan- tage of this Colony. It is not a matter which is one of merely local interest: it is a matter which affects the Empire at large. It may be that the whole of the Unofficial Members, and possibly some of the Official Members, may disagree with my personal views, but I have studied this question very carefully. I have spent much time in comparing the incidence of the cost of defences in this Colony and the incidence in other Colonies all over the Empire.
I believe that it will not be to the advantage of this Colony to have a fixed contribution of one million dollars or any other sum. I believe a better system of assessment than that now employed is easy to invent. I have myself suggested a system of devoting half the margin between ordinary revenue and ordinary expendi- ture to the military contribution. That may or may not be the best possible method, but at any rate it has the advantage of making the incidence correspond with the prosperity of the Colony. Although I cannot accept the resolution which has been moved by the honourable member, I shall, of course, be glad to forward to the Secre- tary of State not only the resolution but the report of the debate in this Council to-day. I have no doubt that Mr. Harcourt will be specially interested to read the remarks which have fallen from the senior Unofficial Member (Honourable Dr. Ho Kai) in regard to the very remarkable fact of which he has told us, that it is in times of adversity that the Chinese contribute most to charitable works and other such calls, and therefore that we are not entitled to assume that because large subscrip- tions are raised the Colony is in a singularly prosperous condition. (Applause.)
The Honourable Mr. EDE: Your Excellency, may I use my right to reply very briefly? I do not propose to go over the ground I have already been over, but, as stated, I worked the figures on the law of average. Your Excellency very kindly but firmly disagreed on the question of the unit. I have ascertained the unit in Great Britain, but I have not been able to ascertain it here. It can, however, make but little difference whether the unit as shown by the census return or the unit of the family is used so long as the same unit is made use of throughout. A point I would like to mention is the question of our geographical position. It is one of those ex- pressions which implies so much, but which may mean so much more or so much less. I have tried to grasp it, but it eludes my mental grasp. Even supposing we could agree as to the value of our geographical position, we would not look for violent fluctuations in that value in normal times in relation to revenue, and yet we are now asked to pay one-third of the entire cost of the garrison while the Colony's average annual payment over the past 47 years was but 20 per cent. of the cost. It would seem to me that some explanation of this difference might be made.
The resolution was then put to the meeting, and the voting was as follows:- Ayes Honourable Mr. Ross, Honourable Mr. Ede, Honourable Mr. Hewett, Honourable Mr. Pollock, Honourable Mr. Wei Yuk, Honourable Dr. Ho Kai.
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