631486-1899-Protest-with-reference-to-the-Estimates-for-Public-Works-Extraordinary-1900 — Page 2

1862 THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 2ND DECEMBER, 1899.

The Loan Accounts are supposed to be kept separate from the general revenue of the Colony. The return does contain a Sinking Fund Account, but no general account showing the present position of the Loan Fund. Has it all been expended? If so, has it all been expended on loan works, i.e., on the works for which it was specifically borrowed, or has any portion of it been taken and applied in aid of the general revenue of the Colony? If so, then the money borrowed from the Loan Monies for general purposes should appear somewhere as an item of revenue, and the amount due from General Revenue to the Loan Fund should have appeared as a liability. The Returns by the Treasurer of the Assets and Liabilities of the Colony at the end of 1898 are not comprehensible as they stand, and are in need of very considerable explanations and additions.

The final settlement of the Estimates for 1900 should be postponed until these accounts are cleared up and re-stated.

4. According to His Excellency the Governor's statement and the Treasurer's Return before referred to, there will be a surplus on 31st December next, over and above the current expenses, in round numbers, of $400,000, and the Estimates for next year provide for an Expenditure on Public Works Extraordinary during 1900 of $331,100 only. The actual amount available for Public Works Ex- traordinary in 1900 is the said $400,000, plus the estimated surplus Revenue over the ordinary estimated Expenditure during next year, say, $436,720, or an aggregate of $836,720.

How is it that, with the large number of important public works now pressing for attention, many of them most urgently required, so small an amount out of the admittedly available surplus revenue is to be applied in 1900 in the execution of such works?

5. There is only one apparent justification for this very small estimate for Public Works Extraordinary in 1900, and that is the inability (if it exists)' of the Public Works Department to proceed with works during the year to a greater extent than the amount estimated for $331,100; but that is, in fact, no justifica- tion or excuse as the remedy is a simple and easy one, to adequately increase the strength of the Department either temporarily or permanently, or to get the necessary work done under the supervision of competent local architects.

Instead of increasing the strength of the Public Works Department to meet urgent public necessities the Estimates for the coming year show a reduction in its strength, especially in Engineers, from what it was a few years ago.

This is a matter which urgently needs reconsideration before the final approval of the Estimates and the passing of the Appropriation Ordinance for 1900.

6. There is apparently abundant available funds for the more urgently. needed public works. The sound basis on which to proceed in the expenditure of that money is to arrange the list of works to be done in the order of their importance and urgency, to take the most urgent in hand without delay and to devote a portion of the funds in hand to providing, as an extraordinary expenditure, the necessary staff for the purpose of superintending the work. There is no reason why an estimate for Extraordinary Public Works should not include the provision of an extra-ordinary supply of officers to superintend their

execution.

7. What are the Extraordinary Public Works now in contemplation, and which of these are in their order the most urgent and the most important?

8. His Excellency the Governor pointed out in his address to the Council the "overwhelming importance of eradicating" the scourge of plague, and that, if any information could be obtained throwing light upon the causes of it, "no "expenditure within the reach of the Colony would be too great to secure the "blessing of freedom from such a scourge." On this point there can be no