repatriates from overseas or were completely helpless Hong Kong cases; shelter during the cold and rainy months for street-sleepers at night; and free food at least once a day for all who were not able-bodied.
The free food centres tried out a number of constructive experiments in addition to the children's Chinese character classes mentioned above. Their aim was to help only the most genuine cases of distress amongst women and children and the old and infirm, and to this end careful checks ensured that only 2% of the 3,000 to 4,000 daily clients were adult males, that few if any were professional beggars, and that children formed nearly half the total number. Step by step propaganda in cleanliness and hygiene, free letter-writing facilities, the free reading of letters to illiterate receivers, and a missing persons bureau were all provided. Some success has also been achieved in implanting in the social workers in these centres an ideal of local Sino-British co-operation in helping the really destitute to help themselves.
Old people are catered for by three homes run respectively by a Buddhist, a Protestant, and a Roman Catholic organisation, and there are waiting lists for all three.
Innumerable welfare committees and councils met through- out the year. The principal official ones were the War Memorial Fund Committee which helped the dependants of those who were killed or incapacitated in Hong Kong by reason of enemy action during the Pacific War; all public subscriptions to this fund were doubled by a Government dollar for dollar grant; the Port Welfare Committee which was concerned with members of the European and American Mercantile Marines who visited Hong Kong; and the Child and Juvenile Welfare Committee which at the end of the year seemed likely to have its functions absorbed by the new official Social Welfare Advisory Committee. The principal voluntary association was the Hong Kong Social Welfare Council which at the end of the year adopted a new constitution under which it was intended that it should represent as many of the voluntary welfare societies as wished to join the Council while continuing to carry on and expand a certain amount of relief work which the Government had asked it to undertake. All its recurring expenses were found by the Government.
In August a strong Hong Kong delegation was sent to the South East Asia Social Welfare Conference called by the Special Commissioner in Singapore. Interesting comparisons were made with the work being done in other territories in South East Asia, and a number of valuable personal contacts were formed.
The degree to which the proposed Municipal Council may in due course take over social welfare activities remained unsettled, but in August an administrative officer was appointed
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