THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 27TH SEPTEMBER, 1890. 957
SEPARATE SYSTEM OF MAIN-DRAINAGE.
The Honourable the Surveyor General's reply to Mr. Leigh's Report of November, 1888.
( Plan accompanying this report not printed.)
REPORT.
Report of
1. I have carefully considered the objections which have been advanced by Mr. R. K. LEIGH, C.E., to the Mr LEIGH'S proposal for the drainage of Victoria on the Separate System, as also his offer to furnish detailed plans and November, 1888. specifications of a drainage scheme of his own in substitution of the designs prepared at my instance by Mr. COOPER, the Government Sanitary Engineer. My Report on the matter has had to stand over pending the decision of the Secretary of State in respect of the proposed Praya Reclamation scheme, as the realization of this great work has a direct bearing on the drainage question rendering desirable a reconsideration of the best positions of the sewer outfalls along the Praya wall.
2. Before proceeding to deal with Mr. LEIGH's objections, I may observe-in passing-with regard to Government works and projects generally, that the criticism, when intelligent, of local engineers in private practice is not without its advantages in raising discussion on points that may be open to question, but that in this particular instance I do not find any contribution of value to the discussion in the pages of Mr. LEIGH's letter, for his condemnation of the Separate System is clearly based on a very imperfect knowledge of facts and on assumptions that can be disproved without difficulty, and I may therefore frankly say that so far as I have been able to follow his arguments I find in them nothing likely to weigh seriously with any professional Authority in England to whom My Lord the Secretary of State may wish to refer these papers for an opinion.
3. I desire also to state at the outset that both Mr. COOPER and myself are in entire accord with the opinions and sanitary maxims contained in Mr. LEIGH's very copious excerpts from the writings of Sir ROBERT RAWLINSON, Mr. CHADWICK, and the rest of the Authorities quoted by him, and that our objection is limited to the obvious misuse to which those opinions have been put in assailing the Separate System as proposed by us, more especially are Mr. LEIGH's exhortations in respect of the increased ventilation of sewers most misleading as tending to imply that the Government Engineers are insufficiently alive to the need of such ventilation---when the real position we have taken up in this particular is that Mr. LEIGH's ventilation panacea is not sufficient,--that other things must be done in addition. Also with regard to Mr. LEIGH's constant refer- ences to Mr. CHADWICK, it may prevent misconception if I state at once that there is nothing in Mr. CHADWICK'S Report on the Sanitation of Hongkong antagonistic to the Separate System.
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4. For the reasons set forth in the two printed Reports of the 23rd of July and the 24th of August last we sessional l'aper have proposed to the Colonial Government that the drainage of the City of Victoria should be recast on the Separate System. In this arrangement Mr. LEIGH concurs as regards the European portions of the City shewn. tinted yellow on the map attached to his letter, but in lieu of the Separate System he advocates the Combined System for those portions of Victoria which are inhabited by the Chinese and which he shews coloured pink on the map.
5. The establishment of two distinct systems side by side-would, generally speaking, not be desirable in the same town because it introduces à complication where simplicity is the object in view, but even if nothing could be said against such complication in respect of towns built on flat or level ground, in Victoria, which is terraced on a strongly marked slope, the relative positions, topographically, of the two districts, European and Chinese, makes the introduction of two systems less desirable than ever, for if in the European or upper half of Victoria new pipe sewers were laid down on the Separate System as concurred in by Mr. LEIGH-and carried down through the Chinese or lower half of the town in order to reach the sea,it is difficult to see why the presence of these main conduits passing through China town should not be utilized for native house sewage as well, more especially as they would be a hundred times more adaptable for the conveyance of foul waters than the storm water drains to which Mr. LEIGH wishes to restrict native sewage.
6. If the sewers of the yellow district could reach the sea without traversing the districts tinted pink,- the case would be different, and something might then be said in favour of a complete dissociation of the two systems, but this is impossible as the pink section of the town interposes as a barrier along the whole length of the city between the yellow section and the harbour. Mr. LEIGH's map does not represent correctly the two districts. The distribution of colours is erroneous; it should have been so made as to accord with the line of demarcation provided for in the European Reservation Ordinance which is the only true division. In the Central portion of his map Mr. LEIGH shews the yellow extending down the hill-slope as far as the water's edge, and also at the extreme right-hand of the map he shows a second yellow district stretching along the shore as far as Causeway Bay. Both these yellow sections excepting the comparatively small patch comprising the City