C
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL moved the third reading.
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THE COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, and the Bill was read a third time and passed.
THE BUDGET.
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY moved the second reading of the Bill intituled "An Ordinance to apply a sum not exceeding Twenty-two million and thirty-eight thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine Dollars to the Public Service of the year 1930.”
THE COLONIAL TREASURER seconded.
HON. SIR HENRY POLLOCK.-Your Excellency, As the Senior Unofficial Member, I have been asked by my Unofficial colleagues to make the main speech dealing with the Estimates for 1930 on behalf of all the Unofficial Members; after which some of my honourable friends will, in due course, as is customary, make certain observations of their own.
In the matter of the Saikung Road only my honourable friend Mr. Braga does not see eye to eye with the rest of us, and he will doubtless indicate, in due course, his reasons for that dissent.
At the outset, Sir, we have to confess that we find the Budget for 1930 somewhat uninspiring and disappointing.
In his remarks on the first reading of the Appropriation Bill for 1930, the Honourable Colonial Secretary admitted in effect that the Government had not adopted a forward policy in material works, and this is obviously so when one comes to consider some of the Colony's pressing needs which still await fulfilment.
One of the foremost of such needs is a new Government Civil Hospital.
Our Government Civil Hospital is hopelessly out of date. It goes back to the early days of the Colony and an entirely new structure is one of our most pressing needs. It is difficult to keep clean and is unhygienic according to modern ideas. It is also at times very overcrowded. There is no isolation block-the maternity wing is inadequate—the X-ray room is damp and unsuitably located.
In his speech on the Budget for 1929 (see Hong Kong Hansard for 1928, at page 74) the Honourable Mr. E. R. Hallifax, then acting Colonial Secretary, after stating that expenditure for a new Government Civil Hospital must be faced in the near future, said that "expenditure for beginning the Government Civil Hospital at least will, I expect, be asked in the Estimates for 1930," and it is very disappointing to the Unofficial members to see that no
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