23
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Friday
, March 29, 1974
"I realise that many people in Hong Kong at this moment are more
interested in the price of food to-day than in better houses, schools,
hospitals, playgrounds or room for more and better factories tomorrow.
This is very natural. We are in the grip of the rapid rise in prices for
foodstuffs exacted by our suppliers.. However much this is regretted I
think it is understood. What is rosented is that anyone in Hong Kong
should exacerbate the situation forced on us by turning it to their own
profit - no matter to how small an extent. And this is a situation
which breeds runour and accusation and one which I view with great sympathy
and concom. I therefore look forward to the new Consumer Council
intervening strongly in this intensely human situation; and the Government
will listen carefully to any proposals it has to make.
"But with reasonable good fortune these immediate preoccupations
should be comparatively short-lived, and looking to the long term I
think it is everyone's wish in Hong Kong that in this decade we make
a major offort to fill the deficiencies of life that excessive immigration
has produced. It requiries a simultaneous advance on many fronts involving
a major effort of planning, engineering, construction, administration and
finance. In our eagerness to break the back of these problems we find
that when all our plans are put together they produce a somewhat indigestible
huap in terms of production and expenditure and in particular in the
three years from 1975. This was the message in the Financial Secretary's
Budget Spooch. While this calls for some re-phasing I am satisfied that
on the assumption of reasonable prosperity our main objectives stand.
/The
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