601
CORRESPONDENCE
REGARDING
THE SANITARY CONDITION
OP
HONGKONG.
[Copy sent to the Secretary of State in Governor's Despatch No. 244 of 5th July, 1901, as Enclosure No. 1.]
SIR,
HONGKONG GENERAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, HONGKONG, 7th June, 1901.
1. The present severe epidemic of Bubonic Plague, which seems now to have become an annual visitation, presents so serious a menace to the general prosperity of this port and Colony, that in the interest of trade my Committee deem it their duty to make such representations to the Government as they trust may lead to the adoption of every measure practicable calculated to limit the spread of this disease.
2. I am therefore directed to point out that although it is now seven years since the disease first appeared in a fatally epidemic form, and notwithstanding all the experience gained, alike of its fatal character and rapid spread and of a serious dislocation of business and special loss to the shipping trade, the authorities are now practically as helpless in its presence as they were in the memorable year 1894. The numbers of cases, now as then, are little in excess of the numbers of deaths; the exodus of the Chinese has, now as then, commenced to be on a formidable scale; and the virulence of the pest seems now to be even more marked than in 1894.
3. It is unfortunately true that medical science has not yet discovered any means of successfully grappling with the plague, but that fact should not stand in the way of measures being taken to arrest its spread, or of the adoption of such precautions in the handling of the sick, the cleansing of drains and houses, and the inspection of slums, as might tend to curtail the ravages of this scourge within certain limits.
4. The loss sustained by the suspension of emigration, the imposition of quarantine at neighbouring ports on arrivals from Hongkong, the reduction in imports and exports, and the diversion and restriction of trade generally, constitute a serious drain upon the commercial community, the more disquieting since it threatens to be of annual recurrence.
5. The Committee are loth to intervene in any matters even apparently outside the domain of trade, but this question is so intimately bound up with the welfare of this great port that they feel it would be a grave omission did they fail to point out how, in their opinion, the Government have made themselves largely res- ponsible for the sad state of things prevailing.
6. If this were not a matter of notoriety, it would only be necessary to refer to the speech of the Medical Officer of Health on the drainage system at the last meeting of the Sanitary Board, when proposing the following resolution:--
“That the Board recommend the Government to utilize all the fresh water "which now runs to waste in the trained and untrained nullahs of the city by "building dams and forming tanks for the automatic flushing of the sewers "and story water drains.”