CO129-623-9 Estimates of Expenditure- includes a report for the year ending March 1952 1-2-1951 - 30-11-1951 — Page 188

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plan to provide education for the 30,000 children who were not attending

school at present. Mr. Fisher considered that his plan could be put into

operation within the existing financial resources of the Colony and that the

Colony could afford to spend more on education.

Mr. Hall drew attention to the fact that in 1945 the number of children

in school was 4,000 whereas by 1950 it had risen to 150,000 and entailed the

rehabilitation and construction of a large number of schools.

Mr. Cook said that both the Secretary of State and he had discussed

Social problems with Sir A. Grantham last summer and were satisfied that the

Governor was fully alive to the problem and that Hong Kong's efforts had been

considerable. Mr. Cook mentioned the difficulty about controlling immigration

and the problem of preventing Hong Kong's social services from being swamped

by Chinese coming into Hong Kong to make use of them. He thought that in the

difficult circumstances Hong Kong were doing as much as could be reasonably

expected of them and the various Advisory Committees here seemed satisfied.

There were numerous political difficulties against over-ruling the unofficial

members in an attempt to increase taxation.

Mr. Sidebotham then dealt with the recent request for access to the

London Loan market to finance the Tai Lam Chung reservoir project and said that

Hong Kong had been informed that a London loan was out of the question until

Hong Kong had been able to demonstrate that it was unable to provide the

necessary finance itself by utilizing local resources, including increased

It had therefore been taxation, to the greatest extent reasonably possible.

made clear to Hong Kong that it could not expect further help from H.M.G.

Mr. Sidebotham then went on to discuss until it was prepared to help itself.

the "American Embargo" and said that despite Mr. Clarke's visit to Washington,

no relaxation had been achieved. After discussion with Sir T. Lloyd and

Mr. Paskin and other Departments (Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, etc.) a "high level" approach to Mr. Atcheson was contemplated and the Chiefs of

We did not Staff were taking parallel action through their own channels. know, however, how successful this approach would be but meanwhile we did know that imports from the U.S.A. had already gone down by 40% and unless alternative sources of raw materials were found, and this would be difficult, some Hong Kong industries would have to close down and this would affect

/Hong