Sessional_Paper_1932 — Page 60

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7. To enable these reductions in the European contingent to be carried out it will be necessary to increase the hours of duty from six to eight per diem, and to lengthen the qualifying period for leave from four to five years. Regarding the former this will principally affect the section sergeants, whom it is proposed by three of the Commissioners should be Russians, -as all other ranks already perform in actual practice eight or more hours daily. Regarding the leave question, the agreements of service of European police stipulate for a five years' tour of duty, but it has been the practice in recent years to grant leave after four years Apart from the extra cost in respect of passages, this entails an increase in the total number of the contingent. On the first two tours five years should be served, thereafter leave could be granted every four years. The Com- missioners do not consider that this will involve any hardship. Non-commissioned police officers have the the privilege of retiring on pension at the age of forty-five years, ten years before their colleagues in other branches of the Government Service.

8. The proportion of Europeans to Asiatics in the Hong Kong Police is high. But after going fully into the matter the Commissioners are unable to recommend any altera- tion in this respect. Owing to the geographical situation of the Colony and a land frontier also easy to cross, the chances of escape for a criminal are very much greater than they are in a city at home or in other colonies. A fairer comparison would be with Shanghai -though the difficulties there are far greater-which has an European contingent double the size of that of Hong Kong.

9. In the Indian contingent it is recommended that when the present two Assistant Superintendents retire, the two posts should be abolished without any increase being made in the number of inspectors and sub-inspectors. Other reductions advocated are the substitution of a sergeant major for a sub-inspector at the Police Training School, the abolition of two posts of sergeant, eleven lance sergeants, twenty-one constables and the replacement of forty-one constables by thirty-six guards. The difference between a con- stable and a guard is that the former is trained in policework, the latter, who is usually an ex soldier, is not. The pay of the two is the same, but the guards are engaged on a temporary basis, and consequently have no passage, pension or leave privileges. In some of the outlying districts there is little police work to be done; all that is required is a patrol or sentryman. There are already fifty guards in the Police Force. By a arrangement of their duties their number need be increased by nineteen only in order to fill the thirty six posts from which forty-one Indian Police will be withdrawn-i.e. there will be a reduction of twenty posts and a partial saving in emoluments in nineteen more.

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10. Reductions of fifty one constables, one lance sergeant, and the substitution of one sergeant for one sergeant major in the Police Training School in the Cantonese con- tingent are recommended.

11. The Northern Chinese contingent should be reduced by eighteen constables.

12. In the clerical and interpreter staff there is little that can be done. One post of interpreter (Class IV) and one of telephone clerk (Class IV) should be abolished, as should also the two posts of Indian teacher and Chinese teacher at the Police Training School. The Commissioners are satisfied that there would be greater efficiency, in addition to economy, if the services of the European Assistant Storekeeper were dispensed with; the post being filled by a locally recruited Portuguese.

13. Miscellaneous reductions recommended are the abolition of one post of Chinese motor mechanic, two boatmen and thirteen coolies.

14. The Commissioners considered the question of handing over to the military certain of the frontier stations. They are of the opinion that it would not be practicable to do so.

PRISON DEPARTMENT.

In Hong Kong there is roughly one warder to every four prisoners, and one European warder to every fifteen prisoners. In Shanghai the figures are eleven and one-hundred- and-one respectively, and in Singapore eleven and thirty-two respectively. Hong Kong therefore has proportionately by far the greatest staff, both European and Asiatic, of the

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