HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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this 125 feet in length is flanked on either side by a strip 21 feet broad used for office accommodation.
During the month of January last the portion of the Hangar used for civil aviation was daily occupied by four machines taking up a floor space of about 3,500 square feet, which gradually increased until August when the daily average number of machines rose to ten occupying a floor space of between nine and ten thousand square feet out of our total of 15,000 square feet. In another six months at the same rate we shall be crowded out. What will be the position when the Air Mails arrive? What will be the position if the Air Ministry come along and take the whole of the present Hangar?
We ought in my opinion to at once proceed to put up another Hangar with a minimum floor space of 30,000 square feet.
I cannot leave this subject without recording a protest in the strongest terms at the apparent want of consideration which has been shown by the Home Authorities to our Flying Club. If it is desired to sell British machines in the Far East then every facility must be given for instruction in such machines. Unfortunately there appears to be an unexplainable disregard of this very elementary principle.
The desire to encourage locally recruited officers in the Government service whether foreign or local Chinese is in accord with the best traditions of our Colonial policy-the more the Colony is able to subsist on its local material the more self supporting will it become.
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I note with interest that Mr. N. L. Smith will shortly assume the position of Director of Education. Here is a vast field for research, if one studies at all closely the recommendations of the Retrenchment Committee on this subject. I should have thought that this position should have been reserved for a technical man, with a life long study of the subject in this period of transition of the Colony's development. This principle, of course, applies equally to some of the legal positions, not forgetting the Police and a variety of other posts. May this appointment not prove a dead end to this able officer and may I yet find him occupying the position to which I think, he should in time rightfully succeed.
Turning now to the Public Works Department, I have a few comments to make. We have some large undertakings before us and I presume the Government has carefully considered the desirability or otherwise of contracting out some of the more pressing ones such as the Government Civil Hospital and works of a like nature. To fulfil our programme within the not distant future. will I think strain our Public Works Department almost to breaking point, it will also necessitate the maintenance of a large permanent staff, and many pensionable officers.
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