Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 603

(Secretary of State to the Governor.)

599

HONGKONG.

No. 229.

SIR,

DOWNING STREET,

18th September, 1895.

I have had under my careful consideration your despatch No. 163 of the 18th of May enclosing the report of the Committee appointed to enquire into the Medical Establishment of the Colony.

2. In your despatch you deal with the difficult question of the Sanitary Board to which attention had been called in the report of the Retrenchment Committee. You state that you have again consulted the gentlemen who constituted the Retrenchment Committee as well as Mr. MCCONACHIE and Mr. BELILIOS, and the Members of your Executive Council, and that there is practically an unanimous opinion that the Government should be held directly responsible for the sanitation of the Colony. Your own view is to the same effect, and you recommend that "the Sanitary Board as at present constituted be abolished and that the Head of "the Medical Department of this Colony, who should be styled Principal Civil "Medical Officer, be made responsible not only for the work of that department but also for the sanitary work of the Colony other than that of an engineering nature "which should be placed under the Director of Public Works."

3. I am not prepared to controvert the opinion which has been thus given after long attention to the subject and consultation with representative residents in the Colony. Sanitation is so all important in Hongkong that it seems only right that it should be under the direct control of the Colonial Governinent and that responsibility in the matter should not be divided; but I consider it to be desirable that before the Sanitary Board is definitely abolished, there should be some resolu- tion or expression of opinion to that effect on the part of the Legislative Council, and I would ask you to invite them to favour me with a formal pronouncement of their views as soon as may be convenient.

4. In the meantime I have not tendered and do not propose to tender any advice to Her Majesty in respect of Ordinances No. 9 and No. 11 of 1895 enclosed in your despatches No. 131 of the 23rd of April and No. 177 of the 4th of June, inasmuch as they imply the continued existence of the Sanitary Board.

5. In the event of the Sanitary Board being abolished you propose that the Medical Department and Sanitary Department should be combined and that the Head of the Medical Department should be held responsible for the sanitation of the Colony. I am inclined to agree with you, though the view does not seem to be shared by the Committee which has lately reported upon the Medical Department, and whose report states (page iii) that the Health Officer for the Colony should in "our opinion have no connection whatever with the medical staff proper." The paragraph, however, in which these words occur assumes the continuance of the Sanitary Board, and it may, I think, be concluded that in the absence of such a Board the Principal Medical Officer and his staff should be entrusted with and held responsible for the discharge of sanitary as well as purely medical duties as was suggested by Lord RIPON.

6. Under the new conditions you consider that the Head of the Medical Depart- ment should have at least four assistants, none of whom-as had already been suggested in my predecessor's despatch to which I have just referred-should be appointed exclusively for particular duties, and in your despatch No. 173 of the 30th of May last you express a strong opinion, which I accept, that none of the medical officers should be allowed any private practice beyond fees for consultation. The sanitary staff, you add, should be placed under the Principal Medical Oficer, the office of Secretary to the Sanitary Board being retaine:1 (necessarily with some