HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
101
H.E. THE GOVERNOR.-There are a few points on which I wish to supplement the remarks made by my honourable colleague the Colonial Secretary. The first is the suggestion that much of the work done by Government doctors at the Government Hospitals could equally well be performed by private practitioners. I wish to make it clear beyond the possibility of misunderstanding that in recording my inability to support that suggestion I am passing no reflection whatever on the ability and skill of the private practitioners in Hong Kong which, I have every reason to believe, will stand comparison with that of the medical profession in any other part of the Empire. I am opposed to the suggestion because I regard it as an essential factor in Colonial Medical Administration that Government Hospitals should be manned by officers and employees of the Crown: that there must be no room given for any division of responsibility and that in matters of discipline and conduct there must be direct Governmental control, the control of a master over his servant. If there are those who consider that I am wrong in this matter they have of course their right of address to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, but I cannot myself consent to the appointment of a local Commission to examine and report on a plan which in my opinion and in that of my honourable colleague, the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, is fundamentally wrong in principle. The staffing and equipment of the new Queen Mary Hospital presents, I fully admit, a serious problem and there is no harm in my saying now that I have asked the D.M.S.S. to consider the closing down of the Victoria Hospital simultaneously with the opening of the Queen Mary. As soon as details of this scheme are ready I shall of course lay them before my Executive Council.
And this brings me to the question as to whether a small Commission or Committee should be appointed to look into the problem of salary scales and rent allowances. I have had a long and wide experience of Commissions and Committees and, when there is delving to be done, evidence to be taken and data to be compiled they can render invaluable service. But when a judgment has to be formed on data already known I feel that the appointment of a Commission or a Committee would be in the nature of an encroachment upon the functions of the Executive Council. I have very recently received from the Secretary of State a definite salary scheme, already adopted in the African Colonies, for consideration as to its suitability for adoption here and the composition of my Executive Council, official and unofficial, renders it a body thoroughly competent in my opinion to frame a preliminary judgment. I say "preliminary" because I shall naturally consult also the members of Finance Committee in due course on so important a matter. I may remark in passing that the African scales of salaries are in some cases appreciably below our own current ones. I have already taken steps for a review of rent and other allowances and it will be necessary in considering the Secretary of State's despatch to examine all forms of personal remuneration comprehensively and correlatively. I share the Honourable Mr. Lo's dislike of temporary
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