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work, and it was h ped that eventually this political clement might be weaned away..
The Chairman explained that Government's reluctance to appoint a European Wolfare Officer (Recommendation 2) could be ascribed to the difficulties which would face any European women in understanding the Chinese people for whose welfare she would in the main be responsible. Government had met this recommendation in part by the appointment of a Chinese woman who had been trained in the United Kingdom as Chief Woman Welfare Officer.
With regard to Recommendation 3, the Chairman explained that this had not been completely satisfied in that the survey which the Social Welfare Office had carried out only covered the important voluntary organisations and had not taken into account the numerous small Chinese societies which undertook social welfare work.
The Committee welcomed the institution of a university course in social science which had commenced at Hong Kong University (Recommendation 5) and appreciated that this was the first instance of a colony having social science training leading to a university degree. It was noted h wover that no details were given of any lower level training.
The Chairman reported that a woman Social felfare Officer was at present in the United Kingdom starting a 2 years course of training and also that the Secretary of the Hong Kong Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association was now in the United Kingdom on a Government Scholarship. This latter was one of the few instances of Government financing the training of a member of a voluntary organisation.
The Committee regretted that no statutory provision was to be made for dealing with the problem of relief (Recommendation 6(iii)) but appreciated that any such legislation might create a demand which it would be impossible to meet financially.
In general, it was realised that a great amount of work was being done and that considerable efforts were being made to improve the present position. The difficulty in recruiting the necessary trained staff had been a delaying factor in the creation of an ideal social welfare organisation.
The Committce in particular welcomed the introduction of the Kaifong Welfare Development Associations. They considered that copies of the Hong Kong despatch, which they felt contained a very fair comment on the recommendations which had been made by Mr. Chinn, should be made available to the main Committee.
Singapore: Amual Report of the Department of SIGRI 70J for 1948 (RSC: 3/51).
The Committec felt that this report, which followed very closely the pattern of other reports which had been received from Singapore, gave an excellent picture of the work which was being done. They realised however that since the report had been prepared a great deal of further progress had bear made o.g. the introduction of Children and Young Persons Legislation, etc.
The Children's Social Centres. (Chap. 2).
The Committee highly commended the work of these centres which they ir ped would continue to progress,
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