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5.
improvement in local economic conditions by hastily conceived
schemes of emergency taxation.
10. The reduction in the charge for excess water referred
to in paragraph 9 of the petition was granted because an
examination of the incidence of this tax showed that it bore
inequitably on certain sections of the community. It was found
that on certain Chinese tenement property the charges for
excess water exceeded the amount of the rates.
11. I do not feel called upon to defend the actions of my
predecessors which are criticized on page 16 of the petition.
Suffice it to say that these items of expenditure were incurred with the full approval of the Legislative Council.
12. The subject of retrenchment and reduction of staff
is raised in paragraph 15 of the petition. The question of
retrenchment was very fully dealt with in Sessional Paper No.2
of 1932 and I fear that extensive retrenchment in expenditure is
not possible unless the services rendered by the Goverment are
to be considerably curtailed. The complexity of government
grows rather than decreases. New or increased services are
continually being demanded; I mention Medical and Educational
services, the Naval Defence Force, Radio services, Air services
and international obligations under the League of Nations and
recent Maritime conventions as obvious examples.
13. I welcome the suggestions of the petitioners on the
subject of the personnel of the Service. The Government has for
some years been pressing on Heads of Departments the necessity
for replacing European Staff by Asiatic, and some progress has been made in what is inevitably a slow process. It is only
with extreme reluctance that it has yielded to the pressing
departmental demands for increased staff. It is not without
significance that one of the signatories of the petition
strenuously resisted a recent demand of the Government that his
Asiatic subordinates, who had been specially trained for the
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