PUBLIC HEALTH
149
condemned materials into 260 tons of animal feed, industrial grease and fertilizer.
Hawkers and Markets. In the interests of public health, legisla- tion for the control of the sale of meat, fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables has been in force for many years. In the early days, it was considered that standards of hygiene could only be satisfac- torily controlled if these commodities were sold from stalls in Government markets. At the end of the year there were forty two of these retail markets. Present policy is not to confine the sale of these commodities to markets but to allow freely the sale of fruit and vegetables by hawkers and the sale of all market com- modities by licence in shops, so long as these shops meet the conditions laid down by the law. Since health considerations no longer mean, as they used to, that market stallholders have a monopoly of trade in meat, fish and poultry, the Government does not have to anticipate the need for or supply all the premises for the trade. At present, in fact, the trade is itself opening up new shops in areas where they are needed. The building of markets in newly developing areas is now considered much less important than the reconstruction of some of the older and more congested market buildings.
In April the Tai Hang Market had to be moved from its existing site and re-established nearby in order to permit drainage and road work in the area. At So Kon Po the market roof was found to be in a dangerous condition and was removed. Architects' plans for a new market at So Kon Po are now being studied while details of a complete programme of market reconstruction (in- volving ten other markets) are also being worked out.
The number of hawkers within the urban area continued to rise with the increase of population. These hawkers retail many com- modities, offer the services of certain trades and operate stalls for the sale of cooked food. The majority of them are licensed, but a great many unlicensed hawkers operate in the more crowded areas. Generally speaking, unlicensed hawkers are not harried if they keep clear of the main thoroughfares, do not cause obstruction and do not interfere with the legitimate trade of licensed hawkers. Many licensed hawkers, however, particularly fixed pitch vegetable hawkers, find it impossible to compete with the unlicensed pedlars and themselves join the milling throng of pedlars.