463
Walled City
[11 JUNE 1974]
HOUSE OF LORDS
Tuesday, 11th June, 1974
[Continuation of OFFICIAL REPORT from col. 462.]
WALLED CITY OF KOWLOON
9.55 p.m.
LORD KENNET rose to ask iler Majesty's Government what is the den- sity of persons per acre in the Walled City of Kowloon in the Colony of Hong Kong. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I think that many of your Lordships will have been to Hong Kong and those who have not will know the map pretty well. I should like to ask you to imagine yourselves on Hong Kong Island.
You then cross the water to the leased territory of Kowloon--a very large city containing a million or more people. In the middle of this city you come to one special enclave, which is the subject of my Ques- tion to-night: that is, the Walled City of Kowloon. It is the old centre of Kowloon. It was a Chinese town when Britain leased their Territory in 1898. It consists of 6} acres only. I set this out in advance because I want the House to be quite clear that I am talking about a very small part of Kowloon, which is itself only a part of Hong Kong-I repeat, 61 acres only.
The first problem in coming to the Walled City of Kowloon is to find the way in. The old mediæval walls have gone -they were demolished by the Japanese in 1943-but it is visibly a separate and distinct enclave. You walk round the
outside; you cannot find a way in at all; and then at last you realise there are certain alleyways which lead in, and they are 2 feet or 3 feet wide. So, if you have a companion, you get into Indian file and walk in. Throughout the 6 acres, the streets or alleys are nowhere more than 3 feet wide. Mostly they are 2 feet wide, in some places they are only 18 inches wide. This in itself is perhaps not too remarkable in an Asian slùm, but what is remarkable about the Walled City of Kowloon is that the buildings standing on these 18 inch-wide alleys are 10, 11 and even 13 storeys high. No wheeled vehicle can get in there-not a lorry, not a care or even a bicycle. Nothing can get
ILL. 11 G 2
of Kowloon
464
ways n the
in except a pedestrian. The are unpaved and of carth. middle of each runs an open diea with
the sewage running down it, be the site is on a slope; and in the so- ve you see very large rats.
The ground floors on either side of you as you walk through the Wall 4 City contain many factories: small spaces, roughly lit. It would not be try to say that the standards in these factories are deficient: the very concept of a zi indard in a factory comes from another world. You see in them people weaving with looms, doing light engineering, making metal goods or carpentry, or enraged in the preparation of food. The mise, the darkness, the dirt and the dust in those factories are totally unregulated. There
is no law to apply to them and the conditions one can see there are beyond description.
There is water in the Walled City of Kowloon. It comes from two sources: either it is brought from municipal that standpipes outside the Walled Cin is good water, and it is carried in buckets to the 6 acres of the Walled City or else there are illegal wells dug directly under the houses. These wells reuch the water-table quite soon, and of course the water there lies directly murder, and entirely unprotected from, the open sewers which run down the alleyways. There is light and electric power in the Walled City of Kowloon. How is it obtained? It is stolen from the municipal mains supply outside the city by illegal connections, and wherever you walk. above your head in the alleyway there are swags and "festoons of naked stolen cables carrying the
electric electricity.
"
My question is: What is the density of population in the Walled Cit? The official figure for the total number of inhabitants in the 6 acres in 27.000 people. This figure was obtained by the municipal authorities--as they will tell you themselves if you ask them be the technique of walking around counting the windows and reckoning four, six, or eight people behind each window | depending on how far it is from the next. In practice, those same municipal authorities will tell you-and 1 do not believe that this figure is disputed by the Government here in London--that the true population of the Walled City is
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