CO129-460 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1920 [1-4] — Page 147

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of officers remains within the discretion of the Governor, and

that the actual appointment of non-commissioned officers is vested in the officer commanding the company, but of course it would be difficult to pass over any name proposed by the company except in very special circumstances. The election principle does not apply to promotions, and it does not apply to the ap-

pointment of the Administrative Commandant or staff.

7.

The First Appendix to the First Schedule, which deals with

training, draws the distinction between optional training and

training which is necessary for efficiency. As a matter of fact,

there is no direct sanction by means of which the necessary train-

ing can be enforced, as there is no penalty for non-efficiency.

Under the former regulations, which appear on pages 889 to 903 of

the "Regulations of Hongkong", a member who caused loss to the

funds of the corps by failure to become efficient was liable to

make good the loss. This subject was dealt with in regulations

29 and 34, on pages 894 and 895. There is, however, an indirect

sanction for the first three years of a volunteer's service under

section 5(3) of the Ordinance. The sub-section provides that

every volunteer shall be deemed to have engaged himself to serve

for three years, and that if he quite, or is discharged from, the

corps before the expiration of that period, he shall pay a sum

of money which depends upon his length of service. No doubt a

volunteer who was grossly inefficient could be discharged under

section 16(1). The sanction, of course, is not direct or complete

8. In section 2 of the Ordinance the term "Administrative Com-

mandant" appears instead of the old term "Commanding Officer of

the Corps". The reason for this is a technical military one.

It is merely to enable the officers who shall be in executive

command of the artillery, engineer, and machine gun companies to