numerous illegal huts, factories and worse,
Squatters
Squatter control in the New Territories has regrettably done no more than slow the rate of squatting. This is due to muddled thinking, lack of determination and differing practices in the various districts.
To be effective squatter control must be linked to a housing policy; but there is no such policy for the New Territories. Substantial funds will be necessary for this and also for providing a simple infrastructure for the small scale industry which is so vital to the economy of the Territories and which now flourishes illegally in shacks and tenements.
・か
They cannot be expected to expand their base to include the non-indigenous majority. They should, I suggest, be represented strongly on the New Territories Council and also given some real responsibility. Could not, for example, the Rural
"who are "They"
Committees which constitute the Kuk be entrusted with funds to cover the cleansing of villages (but not of towns), and to be left to get on with it?
Greedy
A New Territories Council of the type I envisage should also define and manage national parks and eventually, I hope, preserve a substantial part of the New Territories from greedy developers and insensitive engineers. Indeed unless urgent action is taken to preserve the countryside, the new roads now being built for the High Island reservoir scheme will merely extend the spread of squatting and lead to the destruction of what is
remaining part of the New perhaps the most beautiful
Territories.
The foregoing system could, I think, work effectively in the NT. There are other, no doubt better,
systems which could be devised. My main point is that a change is necessary. The Hongkong Government tends to regard suggestions for change, particularly those made by civil servants, as jokes in poor taste,
Some of my former colleagues agree that change is necessary in the NT but they, of course, are not free to speak. Sadly their talents are often devoted to putting up smokescreens to protect
the inner workings of Government from the publi
eye.
revolutionary in the change.
There is nothin
I have proposed. But a revolution will have to take place in the attitude of the New Territories if influential people toward:
Government is persuaded to enter into a debate on their future pattern of administration. CONCLUDED
to be
HONG KONG STANDARD
Streams of filth like these spoil the beauty of Y. Long.
9th Feb., 1971.