these organisations had its own separate Committee or Board. One of the functions of the new Social Welfare Advisory Com- mittee was to promote co-ordination between the activities of all these agencies, the work of government departments concerned with social welfare, and the work of other agencies such as the International Relief Organisation whose headquarters were outside Hong Kong; but such co-ordination is not done in a year if at the same time the traditional and immensely valuable spirit of in- dependent initiative amongst the voluntary organsiations is to be preserved and not blunted.
During 1948 Hong Kong was fortunate to have the benefit of visits from expert representatives of the International Children's Emergency fund and of the Rockefeller Institute, as well as from some of the delegates to the International Y.W.C.A. Conference. Although Miss Helen Keller's visit unfortunately had to be cancelled, two representatives of the John Milton Society for the Blind were nevertheless able to come in her place. Finally, in September the Social Welfare Advisor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies spent a crowded sixteen days' visit to the very con- siderable benefit and pleasure of official and unofficial social welfare agencies, and of the individual workers in those agencies.
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