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$60,000 for widening and improving the road to Customs Pass. This road will before long make accessible to the Motorists of the Colony a very beautiful part of the New Territories including Hebe Haven and Clear Water Bay; so that it cannot be said that they will get nothing for their increased contribu- tion to the revenue.
To meet the deficit it is therefore proposed to draw upon our surplus balances which will, it is anticipated be thus reduced by the end of 1937 to approximately $8,000,000.
It is considered that, if ever, this policy is justified at the present time. Hong Kong is still feeling the effects of the serious depression of the last few years. One may feel that with the stablisation of our currency, the increase, in some cases considerable, of our export trade in local manufactures, and the growing prospect of peace and prosperity among our neighbours in China, the stage is set for recovery; but until the curtain has gone up, the less added to the burden of industry the better.
Moreover 1937 will be in some ways a turning point.
Early
We are drawing near the end of a period of expansion. next year three of our major public works, the Jubilee dam, the new prison, and the Queen Mary Hospital will be finished. It will be necessary to decide then what standard of maintenance and what rate of progress should be set for the future. The problem of reducing the cost of personnel by reducing the scale of salaries for new appointees and by substituting local for European staff is under constant attention, and experiments in both directions are already being made.
I shall now with your permission offer a few brief comments on some of the more important points connected with
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