CO129-600-3 Salaries Commission- proposed Public Services Commission 1-4-1949 - 31-12-1949 — Page 6

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157

1. In (4) the Governor does not commit himself to an opinion on the view stated in (2) ► viz. that it is at least arguable that the only prospect of Hong Kong's remaining a separate entity and avoiding absorption into China lies in maintaining a strong British Administration in which most of the key administrative posts would continue to be filled by Europeans and that therefore a full application of Colonial No. 197 to Hong Kong may be undesirable. He simply says that we cannot go back on Colonial No. 197 now (it follows therefore that Administrative and Police posts cannot be omitted from the schedule of posts to be referred to the Public Service Commission), but that it should not in practice be difficult to ensure by administrative action the remission of a sufficient proportion of Administrative and Police vacancies to the Secretary of State by the Commission. The "administrative action" in mind appears to be no more than care in the selection of the Chairman and members of the Commission (they are to be appointed by the Governor) so as to ensure that, while being impartial, they at the same time do not take a "purely doctrinaire attitude" towards implementing the policy of paragraph 3 of Colonial No.197. all very well, but it is not necessary for the Commission to be "doctrinaire" for it to feel bound to select a local candidate if he is suitable and, as Mr. Paskin has pointed out in his minute of 18/3, suitability may be less difficult to establish in the absence of a field of European candidates. The crux of the matter however apparently is that there really are very few local candidates who can be considered at all suitable and that this is likely to be the case for some time to come.

This is

2.

I don't think we can press this farther. We must therefore in replying to the Governor

(again by s. o. letter, I think) agree that Administrative and Police vacancies should, like others, be remitted to the Commission to be filled by local candidates if suitable ones are available.

We