CO129-557-5 Estimates 1937 19-8-1936 - 7-8-1937 — Page 231

Original rig for

for action 53707/36 (Salary Levy)

on

492.

268

AIR MAIL.

REC

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,

36

HỒNG KONG,

19th August, 1936.

CY

E:CA.

sir,

I have the honour to inform you that, in

accordance with long established local procedure which

hardly consorts with Colonial Regulation 194 but has

distinct advantages at a time of financial stringency,

I have been presiding daily over an Estimates Committee

(consisting of the acting Colonial Secretary, the Colonial

Treasurer and myself) which has scrutinized the draft Budget

item by item with the collaboration of each Head of Department

in his turn.

2.

It is distressingly clear to me that a large

deficit on the 1937 budget is inevitable. Not only have we

to translate sterling salaries and Crown Agents' indents into

local currency at a much depreciated dollar, but the

completion of three major Public Works (the Central British

School, the queen Mary liospital and the Stanley Gaol) will

entail inevitable increases in staff, equipment and annual

maintenance, because all three works represent not merely

replacements but enlargements of the existing institutions.

Moreover the siting of the new Hospital and Gaol on the

rural South side of this Island necessarily involves costly

transport to and from the urban areas on the Northern side.

My Executive Council has agreed, and the public appears

reconciled, to the closing of the present popular Victoria

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

W.G.A. ORMSBY-GORE, P.C., ".P.

C.

&C.,

&c.