REVIEW
19
learned of the technique of water management (and of how to approach the villagers) which is already proving useful in con- nexion with the Shek Pik catchwaters and will be so again as the Integrated Scheme goes forward.
The improvement of urban water supplies not only gives rise to irrigation problems. From time to time it has been necessary to build a reservoir in an inhabited valley and to remove and resettle the inhabitants. Compulsory eviction of this kind, even with the offer of the most generous compensation, is not an easy undertaking anywhere and Chinese rural society has even stronger ties with the home village than most.
The records of earlier evictions are lost, but we know that the construction of Kowloon reservoir between 1902 and 1910 involved moving one village down into the Sha Tin valley. The old paddy terraces are still visible when the water level drops in the reservoir, and the waterworks still employ many of the descendants of the evicted villagers. The biggest move undertaken so far was in 1928 when 855 persons were resettled from eight villages in the upper part of the Shing Mun valley to make way for the construction of the Jubilee reservoir. They farmed 180 acres and had rights in a further 1,200 acres of forest land and 42 acres of pineapples (the names 'Pineapple Pass' and 'Pineapple Dam' still appear on maps of the Colony). This operation cost about $300,000. The Shing Mun villagers selected the sites for their new houses themselves and there was a hint of things to come in the District Officer's report at the time that. the new village sites are in a more populous neighbourhood than the old'.
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When it became clear that the inhabitants of Tai Lam and Kwan Uk Tei in the Tai Lam valley must make way for the construction of the Tai Lam reservoir it was apparent that they too wished to move from their remote valley to a more populous area. Although every effort was made to persuade them that their future would be surer in the country, they were determined to settle in Tsuen Wan which was by this time developing rapidly into an industrial town. Once this was decided, protracted negotia- tions followed on all the details of resettlement. The new houses were specially designed to maintain a communal spirit, the build- ings ranging round three sides of a square with a central courtyard.