REVIEW OF THE YEAR
If development is reckoned in terms of the elimina- tion of squalor and misery and insecurity, and the provision of the antithesis of these things for people who suffer greviously from them, then the year of the Horse has been a year of positive and promising development in Hong Kong. The anonymous observer of whom we wrote last year would not be disappointed if he climbed again to his vantage point looking across the harbour to the Nine Hills. Some at least of the grey-brown expanses of hovel-roofs have gone. And in their place are high white blocks, their vertical line broken by vari-coloured balconies, efficient, orderly and safe. They are crowded, indeed, but crowded with people many of whom had little reason to expect the treatment they have received and who may well form the nucleus of a valuable new community.
Quite apart from the strain and suffering brought about by the fire disasters mentioned above, 1954 was a trying year for everyone because of the acute shortage of water. There are no large rivers or lakes in the Colony and rainfall impounded in reservoirs constitutes the sole supply. The total rainfall recorded at the Royal Observatory amounted to only 53.82 inches which is 30.82 inches below normal, and the reservoirs were never fully replenished. For two months of the year the supply was reduced to four hours a day and for five months to only three hours a day and this meagre ration was still in force at the end of the year.
A daily domestic routine of filling baths and buckets with water has become a regular feature of the life of rich and poor alike, and it is borne with an equanimity which surprises visitors to the Colony. The progress made in the construction of the Tai Lam Chung Reservoir is therefore watched with great interest and, at the end
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