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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

I am happy to note that some provisions have been made for the staffing of the new City Hall. No doubt more staff will be engaged when the building is nearer completion. I hope, nevertheless, no effort will be spared in getting the best people to fill these posts because we want to make it a real cultural centre of Hong Kong.

I know from previous experience what long sessions Members of the Estimates Select Committee must spend in going through the draft estimates. The present recommendations represent many hours of patient and careful consideration. For this reason and with these remarks, Mr. Chairman, I give my approval to these recommenda- tions.

MR. B. A. BERNACCHI:-Mr. Chairman, some years ago it was customary when the Estimates were laid on the table at a Council Meeting for most of the Members of Council to speak upon them at considerable length. I think the reason for this was that in those years the Council was none too happy over the question of staff for the Urban Services Department and associate Departments. We felt on the one hand that we were being asked to do a job of work with totally inadequate tools and that the Urban Services Department or the Sanitary Department as it was then called had wholly failed to keep pace with the rapid expansion in our urban population during the first half of the decade that has just come to an end. On the other hand we felt that there were several appointments that were just sinecures and by a strange twist of circumstances that offices controlling relatively small aspects of our work were almost top heavy with desk sitters. We were particularly thin on the ground and grossly understaffed in respect to all those ranks whose duties required them to be out in the streets of these great cities of Victoria and Kowloon that comprise the urban areas.

Mr. Barnett, when he was Chairman of the Urban Council, and his successor Mr. Richards were most cooperative with members in this matter, but it was a long and uphill battle getting what we wanted and it was particularly essential for us to show, as was in truth the case, that we had very carefully gone through the Estimates of the Council and that the proposals being put up to Government represented in the opinion of all members, particularly the Unofficial Members, the minimum requirements to enable the Council's Services to be carried on efficiently in the coming year.

It was in the time of Mr. Holmes that our staffing requirements gradually began to bear some resemblance to our real needs and it is now no longer necessary to make a public display in Council of our support for these Estimates before having any hope of seeing them realized in the coming year.

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What I have said for staffing requirements equally applies to the various capital expenditures in which I hope we have, and will always have, the support of the Director of Public Works who is a member of this Council.

In the result I do not intend to-day to go in detail through the Estimates. We do not have enough staff. I doubt whether we will ever have enough staff. But at least things are moving and the pro- posals for new staff in the coming year should greatly assist our work, small as they may be. There is only one matter which I would like to mention at this stage since the presentation of the Estimates more or less coincides with the departure on leave of our Secretary Mr. Ferris and that is that in my view, I believe in the view of most of us, the work of Secretary of this Council is of such a specialized nature that it should be a more or less permanent appointment and that the person holding that office should not as at present be with the Council one year and with some other department of Government the next. I hope that we will see Mr. Ferris back with the Council upon his return from leave although I would like to hasten to add that the Council is fortunate in having as his replacement the person of Mr. Mitchell.

Times are not so far ahead when even more sweeping reorganiza- tion will have to be considered. The constitution of the whole Council itself is clearly at present an interim one and I would welcome a clear statement from Government as to whether or not it is intended that this Urban Council should take over the administration of the City as a proper Municipal Council with a proper Municipal staff and this again affects the question of Chairmanship of the Council and the continued advisability of a Civil Servant, namely, the Head of the Urban Services Department, being the Chairman of the Council, an appointment which under certain circumstances might well be in conflict with his orders as a Government Servant or at least with his views as a mere adviser to the Council in his capacity as the Head of the Urban Services Depart-

ment.

I say frankly that if it is not intended the Urban Council should become the Municipal Council of Hong Kong then I am doubtful of the need for the Council at all, or for us to continue year by year to consider seriously the Estimates of what are in fact Departments of Government. In a Colony the size of Hong Kong the matter may well be dealt with by abolishing this Council altogether, enlarging the Legis- lative Council with Elected Members and appointing a Select Com- mittee of the Legislative or Executive Council to supervise the overall work of the Urban Services and associate departments.

With this word of warning as to the future and the need for clarification of the future may I express my support and the support of the other members who stand with me for the Estimates that have to-day been laid upon the table.

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