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Taken together these specific recommendations work out at 18%. Detailed enquiry has been made into the work done by each individual member of the Senior Clerical and Accounting Staff. As a result a reduction of 15% has been made. Government is satisfied that to go beyond this would seriously jeopardise the working of departmental machinery. As it is, it has only been possible to attain this figure by a number of officers, who are due for home leave, not applying for it, or being delayed twelve months or more.

Paragraph 2.-At the time the Retrenchment Commission was sitting two locally appointed officers were dismissed; this evidently influenced the Commissioners when they were writing their report. Government is well satisfied with the results it has obtained from locally recruited European clerical staff, particularly has this been the case with the Probationer class,--young men of under 20 years of age, many of them sons of Government servants. Moreover, it is an exceedingly cheap method of recruitment. A thoroughly trained man will not come out from England except at a comparatively high salary; in addition to which there is, as the Commissioners remark, the cost of his passage or passages (if he is married), and if he is unsatisfactory return passages home have to be provided. In the case of the two locally appointed officers who were dis- missed, Government had no such liability.

Paragraph 3.-The number of stenographers has been reduced to eleven, which includes a special new post in the Police Department which has recently been created. Leaving this out of account, there is an actual reduction of six out of sixteen posts.

The question of sharing stenographers by departments has been considered, but it is only practicable to a very limited extent.

The possibility of employing Chinese lady stenographers is still being explored.

JUNIOR CLERICAL SERVICE.

A bald recommendation for a 20% reduction, without any indication as to where or how the reduction is to be made, is not very helpful. The only indication that has been given is that no reductions at all are to be made in certain departments. The Imports and Exports Department (including the Statistical Branch) with more than eighty clerks is one of these. If there is to be no cut in a department with such a large clerical staff, a far larger cut than 20% will have to be made in other departments, if a general reduction of 20% is to be obtained. The Commissioners apparently did not examine the heads of departments, who gave evidence before them, as to how their respective clerical staffs were employed.

The Subordinate Staff Board composed of the Treasurer, Post Master General, Head of the Sanitary Department and the Second Assistant Colonial Secreary went into this question most carefully, department by department, and officer by officer. They have only recently concluded their enquiries, and as a result a saving of only thirteen posts has been found to be possible.

KOWLOON-CANTON RAILWAY.

The recommendation in the second paragraph will receive the sympathetic considera- tion of Government when the present Manager of the Railway retires. Similarly the question of promoting a Chinese (rather than appointing a Portuguese) to the post of Traffic Inspector will be considered on the retirement of the officer referred to by the Commissioners. The Traffic Assistant has important administrative duties to perform; to require him to inspect on the trains 'several times a week' would result in the dis- organization of the traffic department. Surprise visits are found to be sufficiently efficacious. The revaluation of the railway lands, as recommended in the final paragraph, has been taken in hand.

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT.

Paragraphs 3 and 4.-It is, as it always has been, the aim of Government to appoint as Director of Education the most suitable officer, be he a Cadet or an officer who has spent his entire service in the department.