42
HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
creation of its successor, the present Hong Kong Telephone Company. The main objects of Government in 1925 were to secure that the Company should in future be domiciled in Hong Kong and work on a dollar basis and to provide an improved telephone service in the Colony. The first object was realised by requirements in respect of the registration and articles of the Company and the number and residence of its directors. They must all be bona fide resident in Hong Kong. The present Bill merely increases their number. There can be no doubt, I think, that the second object also has been achieved and that the achievement is due to the efficiency of this Hong Kong Company working within the scheme of an ordinance which places the ultimate control of its activities in the hands of the Governor-in-Council and of this Council.
In framing an Ordinance governing a public utility company the interests of three parties have to be considered, though in a final analysis these may be reduced to two: the public generally, and that part of the public which subscribes for the services rendered by the Company, and the shareholders of the Company. The 1925 Ordinance, therefore, in addition to making provision for a royalty, controlled both dividends and subscription rates.
The net profits of the Company were dealt with in the Resolution as follows:-
They were to be used firstly in payment to Government, as the representative of the public, of a royalty of $4 in respect of each direct exchange line telephone; secondly in payment to the shareholders of the Company of a minimum dividend of 8 per cent. per annum rising to 12 per cent. per annum; thirdly in the event of the net profits exceeding 12 per cent. per annum then as to the difference between 12 per cent. and 18 per cent., half thereof was to be distributed in further dividends and the remaining half employed in the reduction of the subscription rates; the dividend payable to shareholders being limited to a maximum rate of 15 per cent. Any additional surplus was to be used solely for the reduction of subscription rates.
Effect was given to these proposals by the Telephone Ordinance, 1925. According to the schedule of that Ordinace the annual rate to be paid by subscribers per exchange line within Victoria, Kowloon and the Peak district was $108, subject to revision upwards if the rate was found to be insufficient to make provision for an efficient service and for the payment of the minimum dividend of 8 per cent. per annum. In this connection it will be remembered that the dollar in 1925 was the equivalent of 2s. 4d.
In 1930 the annual rate was increased, with the approval of this Council to $117 per exchange line, at which figure it has remained. With the flat rate basis, by which subscribers in Hong Kong may have unlimited calls for the standard rate of subscription, it is difficult to make accurate comparison, yet it may safely be said that the Hong Kong
43
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.