CO129-600-3 Salaries Commission- proposed Public Services Commission 1-4-1949 - 31-12-1949 — Page 44

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Medical and Nursing services, where it will be possible to accept a higher proportion of local candidates at a relatively early date. The difficulty of finding good local material for the Administrative Service and the Police is more acute than in the other professional grades. I would welcome a leavening of Chinese candidates, if I could find it. It should not, I think, be difficult in practice to ensure by administrative action the remission of a sufficient proportion of vacancies in these two grades to the Secretary of State by the Commission.

4.

As you know, Megarry has been offered appointment as Special Adviser prior to appointment as Chairman of the Public Services Commission. I expect that he will arrive in the Colony about the middle of next month. With his practical experience of local conditions he is unlikely to adopt a purely doctrinaire attitude towards implementing the policy set out in paragraph 3 of Colonial No.197. I have not yet decided who should be the two members of the Commission, but it is probable that one will be a Chinese and one a non-Chinese. They will both, however, be persons whose sympathies lie with preservation of the British Administration in Hong Kong.

5.

With regard to the amendments to sections 2, 4 and 6(c) of the Bill, which were suggested in the Note enclosed with your letter, I agree that these should be incorporated in the draft bill before it goes to Legislative Council. Regarding section 3, it is not my intention that an officer in the service of the Government should be appointed as a member of the Commission, but I am satisfied that if it should ever become necessary to appoint a serving officer the situation could best be met by amending the Ordinance. It is also my intention that persons selected for appointment to the Commission should not be actively engaged in politics.

6.

There is one other point on which I now entertain some doubt, namely, section 5 of the draft bill, under which the Establishment Officer will be appointed as permanent secretary to the Commission. I feel that it is possible that this may be expecting too much in addition to his normal duties and the part which he will be expected to play soon on the proposed Joint Staff Committee (our modified form of Whitleyism). It may be desirable to have an arrangement more in accordance with paragraphs 17(2) and (19) of the Memorandum enclosed with your Confidential Despatch No. 66 of 10th March, 1948, i.e., that the Commission should have its own separate secretarial staff and that the Establishment Officer should attend the Commission as an adviser or as a co-opted member. however, a matter which I should like to settle after

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