CO129-400 - Governor Sir May - 1913 [3-4] — Page 154

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3 large first class Hotels involved. One of them the Hongkong Hotel has 3 bars one for residents in the Hotel, one for residents in the Colony, which is con- -fined to men of good social standing, and one for visitors, seafaring men and residents of the middle and lower classes. Soldiers and sailors are not excluded but

in practice very few except men belonging to the American Navy patronise it. The Hotel has 161 bed rooms and owing to fluctuations in the patronage of visitors due to climatic causes it has many lean months in the year. I am

of opinion that this Hotel could not be financed

successfully if deprived of the profit on the sale of alcoholic liquors in its bars. The same may probably be said of the King Edward Hotel which has 58 bed rooms.

The Peak Hotel which has 95 bed rooms is a residential

Hotel which is full all the year round and which alone

of the three might be able to stand the loss of its bar.

(d). There are other institutions such as the Hongkong and

German Clubs which could certainly not be financed if deprived of the profit on their bars. It would be im-

-possible to take over these Clubs or to manage their

bars separately from them.

5.

As for the question of taking over these large

Hotels by the proposed Trust, it may be, I think, dismissed as impracticable. Such a scheme would not I am sure commend itself to business men here and would not therefore obtain financial support. And it must be remembered that there are not sufficient rich philanthropists in this Colony to support such a scheme out of philanthropic sentiment.

It seems to me that the object which the pro- -moters of Public House Reform in this Colony set out to attain is in a fair way of being accomplished. That object is defined in the Sessional Paper No. 8 of 1909 copy of which was enclosed in Sir

F.