NO KOM
NO.
12
sir,
Colonial office,
Church House,
16
Great Smith Street,
London, 8. §.1.
58
19 March, 1951.
I have the honour to refer to your despatch No. 125
of the 14th November, 1950, on the subject of Social Welfare in Hong Kong, and to inform you that this despatch, together with ita enclosures and with Mr. Creech Jones' despatch No. 56 of 4th March, 1949, and my despatch No. 216 of the 19th August, 1950, has recently been placed before the Reports Sub-Committee of my Colonial Social ¿elfare Advisory Committee. I am in full agreement with the Sub-Committee's comments, which are as follows:-
The Sub-Committee felt that the amount of social welfare work which was at present being undertaken, as shown in enclosures 1 and 2, to your despatch under reference, was highly commendable. In particular the Committee welcomed the introduction of the Kaifong welfare Development Associations which, it was hoped, would continue to flourish.
With regard to anclosure 3 to your despatch, commenting on the report by Mr. Chinn which had been forwarded under cover of Mr. Creech Jones' despatch under reference, the Sub-Committee noted with some regret that the Recommendation for a separate Social Welfare Department (Recommendation 1) haŭ been rejected. while they fully appreciated the reasons for this rejection and realized that at present it might not be opportuns to separate the Bocial welfare Office from the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, as both were inter-dependent, they hoped, nevertheless, that it might eventually be possible to separate the two departments, since ideally a Social welfare Office should not be concerned with political work,
The Sub-Committee welcomed the survey which had been darried out in response to Recommendation 3 but observed that as this survey covered only the important voluntary organisations and had not taken into account the numerous small Chinese societies which undertook social welfare work, it had not completely covered the voluntary contribution in the field of social welfare.
They welcomed the institution of a university course in social science at Hong Kong University and appreciated that this was the first instance of a Colony providing social science training leading to a University degree. They noteẻ, however that no details had been given of any lower level training and enquired whether any particulars could be supplied.
They recognised the need for the Principal Probation Officer to give further study to Recommendation 6 (1 and 11) and realised that the implementation of these recommendations and of Recommendation 4 had been considerably delayed by the difficulty in recruiting the necessary trained staff. They regretted that no statutory provision was to be made for dealing
{
Governor
Sir Alexander Grantham, K.O.M.G.,
xander
etc.
etc.
etc.
/with
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