}
have been almost honourably shelved; but the Urban Council sub-committee took a quite different line. They said that the routine of huge fires each year was quite unacceptable, that con- siderations of health and public order demanded rapid and effective action, that it was ridiculous for the economic and social progress of the Colony to be strangled through a land shortage which could be to a great extent relieved if illegal structures could only be removed from large tracts of valuable land, that the squatter areas were a very serious blot on the Colony's prestige, and that the problem should now be faced and dealt with even if it meant very heavy capital expenditure. 12. Finally the sub-committee added that resettlement accommodation constructed by Government, should Government agree to enter this new field, ought to be let at a rental related not only to the capacity of the settlers to pay but also to the cost of construction. In other words Government should charge an economic rent if possible. It was also recommended that there should be an administrative reorganization designed to bring under one unified control all functions related to the prevention of squatting and to the clearance and resettlement of squatters. These functions had previously been divided between three departments.
13. Government reserved its opinion for the time being on the proposal to construct multi-storey accommodation at the public expense for general resettlement purposes, but agreed to undertake, as an experiment, the construction of eight six-storey buildings at Shek Kip Mei. The proposal to set up a temporary Department of Resettlement was also approved and it was understood that a long-term programme on the lines proposed by the Urban Council would be carefully examined, as a matter of urgency, by the new department.
CHAPTER III
THE DEPARTMENT OF RESETTLEMENT
14. There followed a substantial upheaval. Three Cadet Officers Class II, five Executive Officers and nearly 500 more junior officers, most of whom had been members of the several
7