HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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H.E. THE OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT.— Honourable Members of the Legislative Council: The very full replies made by my official colleagues to the criticisms of the unofficial members have left little for me to say apart from certain general observations on the trend of the debate.
The Government cannot but be gratified at the cordial reception given to the Budget and I associate myself very fully with the congratulations tendered to the Colonial Secretary on his able introductory speech. I desire to place on record my personal indebtedness to the Colonial Secretary and his staff and to the heads of the principal departments and in particular to the Treasurer and the Director of Public Works for their excellent work in the preparation of the Estimates and of the memoranda which accompanied them.
I am glad to find that our efforts to improve the form of the Budget and our adoption of the system of printed memoranda on finance and public works have again met with the approval of honourable members. The Senior Chinese Unofficial Member may rest assured that we welcome suggestions for improvement and that any suggestions made will receive full consideraiton.
The Budget as a whole involves large sums of revenue and expenditure, and while it is only to be expected that honourable members should feel some disappointment at the absence of works in which they are specially interested, I would venture to remind them that, large as the revenue is, we are bound by the limits of that revenue and as we must balance our budget new items of expenditure can only be inserted on one of two conditions, either works already inserted must be cut out or new taxation must be imposed to meet the additional cost. After listening to the Honourable Mr. Braga's appeal for a more progressive policy in Kowloon and to his accusation of timidity on the part of the Government, I feel it necessary, while fully acknowledging the propriety of his enthusiasm for our possessions on the mainland, to sound a note of warning. I am glad to find that our policy of keeping our reserve funds at not less than $10,000,000 meets with general approval and that the honourable member has found no support for his theory that it represents a timid policy; and when it is realized that apart altogether from loan works and maintenance votes, we pro- pose to spend no less than $1,719,600 on Public Works Extraordinary in Kowloon and New Kowloon next year, I feel sure that his suggestion that we are pursuing a policy of economy amounting to harmful stagnation will meet with a similar lack of support.
Large revenue figures have their dangers for unofficial members no less than for heads of departments. It has been my
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