CO129-539-12 Loans for public works- military finances 26-2-1932 - 7-3-1933 — Page 33

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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

As the Government has accepted the principle of showing under the same department all the items of expenditure appertaining thereto, I think that it would be better if launches-with their crews-not belonging to the Harbour Department, such as items 31, 32, 33 and 34 under Special Expenditure of the Harbour Department on page 29 of the Estimates, were inserted under the Department directly concerned, though the control of such craft could still be vested in the Hon. Harbour Master. That the Government recognises the merits of this principle is evidenced by the transfer of the crews of "P.D.D. No. 1" and P.W.D. Divers' Barge" from the Estimates of the Harbour Department to those of the Public Works Department--see page 32 of the Estimates. I submit that once that principle is accepted, it should be adopted throughout the Estimates.

The item 'Chain Cable for Moorings, $22,960' under Other Charges of the Harbour Department (page 29) should, I think be more appropriately allocated to Special Expenditure of that Department because it is non-recurrent expenditure. To insert such items under "Other Charges" which covers, or should cover, annually-recurring disbursements, tends to make the figure for the annually recurrent estimates misleading.

I now pass on to a subject which has been the cause of considerable public

public interest-the scheme or experiment of employing local men to fill certain positions hitherto held by Europeans. It is gratifying to find that this policy which my honourable friend Mr. J. P. Braga and I have advocated for some years is at last to be adopted, though by way of experiment. In his speech introducing the Budget, the Hon. Colonial Secretary said: "Some expansion of the staff available for these clerical positions is inevitable, and it is merely a question of the nature of the expansion." These words foreshadow a further increase in staff. and connote an uncertainty as to whether local men or Europeans are to be employed for the new posts, if created. I hope that in these days of retrenchment such expansion may be rendered unnecessary by a careful redistribution of work; and that, if it should become an absolute necessity to expand, the posts may be given to local men.

It is my firm belief that there is adequate material to be found locally for at least some of the posts on the Senior Clerical and Accounting Staff; and that the proper type of men, who now eschew the Civil Service for its insufficient prospects, will be attracted to it, if promotion to these higher clerical positions of trust and responsibility were to be made by selection according to merit, instead of strictly by seniority. Heads of departments can help to make the scheme a success by carefully ascertaining the capabilities and aptitudes of individual members of their staff, and bringing—confidentially, if necessary-special cases deserving

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