Sessional_Paper_1927 — Page 125

121

No. 1927

5

HONG KONG.

RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE HARBOUR MASTER AS REGARDS STAFF ESTABLISHMENT AND SALARIES FOR THE GOVERNMENT

MARINE SURVEYOR'S DEPARTMENT.

THE HON. THE COLONIAL SECRETARY.

I herewith forward a letter addressed to me by Mr. Wilton, the Surveyor lent to this Government from the Consultative Branch of the Board of Trade, London, who arrived in the Colony a short time ago for the purpose of ascertaining what steps it will be necessary to take at this Port to ensure recognition by the Board of Trade of a Special Hong Kong Passenger Certificate, to have equivalent value all over the world with the Passenger Certificate issued by the authorities in the United Kingdom.

2. As you are aware this question of obtaining recognition has been under review for some years past, but no serious steps were taken until January 1925 when a despatch No. 26 dated 17.1.25 was forwarded to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Various minutes and despatches were written, but the matter did not come to a head until the owners of two ships (the s.s. "Changte" and "Taiping" which were completing at the Hong Kong and Whampoa Dockyard for the Hong Kong-Australia trade) discovered that the present Hong Kong Passenger Certificate was not recognised by the Australian authorities. This being the case it would be necessary for those two ships,

(a) on their first arrival at an Australian port to go into dry dock and to be re-sur- veyed by the Australian authorities, and to take out an Australian Passenger Certificate before they would be allowed to enter the Australian Passenger trade, thus putting their owners to considerable expense.

(b) in order to renew their Australian Certificates, to carry out their annual refit and docking at an Australian port at a higher cost than this work could be done at Hong Kong, thus diverting from this port work which, had a passenger certificate with world-wide recognition been available here, would have been placed with one of the local shipyards.

After the interchange of many despatches between this Government, the Government of Australia and the Board of Trade, London, it was agreed that, subject to certain con- ditions, the Board of Trade and the Government of Australia would give, for these two ships only, provisional recognition for six months to their Hong Kong Passenger Certificates pending the settlement of the question of recognition of a Special Hong Kong Passenger Certificate. Owing to various delays it was found necessary to obtain exten- sion of the period, and various steps were taken to this end, and extension was granted until such time as Mr. Wilton arrived in the Colony and had had opportunity of survey- ing those ships and of assuring the Board of Trade that their survey was in order. The Certificates then issued will be valid only for twelve months and as Mr. Wilton is only lent to this Government for a period of six months, it will necessarily follow that at the expiration of twelve months, unless in the interim steps are taken to ensure recognition. the difficulties will start anew.

3. As stated by Mr. Wilton, the Board of Trade require that, before they grant recognition to the Special Hong Kong Passenger Certificate, they should be satisfied that:

(a) the survey work at this port is carried out by officers competent to do the work and under regulations of equivalent value to those in force in the United Kingdom.

(b) the staff is numerically adequate to deal efficiently with the total work of the

Port.