REVIEW OF HOUSING CONDITIONS IN HONG KONG
93
health and in his first annual report went so far as to predict the eventual outbreak of an epidemic of "unenviable renown".2 He found houses commonly occupied by three to eight families per room which were in a filthy state and were constructed without any regard to basic sanitary requirements. Such properties were owned both by Europeans and wealthy Chinese who exacted high rents secure in the knowledge that, because of the critical shortage of accommodation, the tenants were in no position to seek more equitable terms or improvements.
Efforts by the government to improve standards of construction and health met with determined resistance from property owners. To take but one example, in early 1878 the Surveyor General, J. M. Price rejected some plans of Chinese tenement houses on the grounds that they would be unhealthy; to help improve the situation he made certain recommendations for better ventilation by widening the alley at the rear of the premises. This action met with a storm of protest and culminated in a petition to the Governor, Pope-Hennessy, to the effect that the buildings were designed in accordance with the requirements and habits of Chinese people. The petitioners further claimed that:
• these habits, although condemned by the more recent rules of western science are, as a matter of fact, the outcome of a lengthened experience among the Chinese living in large and crowded cities, and are as deep rooted as most of their social customs, so it is quite certain that the tenants, as they would not understand the reason, would in no way avail themselves of the facilities for the free access of light and air. The windows looking out into the proposed alleys would be kept closed and the alleys themselves would be made receptacles for the deposit of refuse... Chinese tenants are, as a rule,... unable or unwilling to pay high rents, and it is only by so dividing the houses that many families can reside in each division that Chinese property is made profitable and at the same time the necessary lowness of rent attained
2 "Annual Report of the Colonial Surgeon", The Hongkong Government Gazette, 4th April 1874, p. 157.
3 "Chinese Houses", The Hongkong Government Gazette, 27th July, 1878, pp. 370-371.