August 3, 1901.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT. recommended from many points of view. It would not, however, offer the community so much ground as would seem probable at first sight, for the retention of the Yard where it now is will probably involve the Navy taking over at least a portion of what the Military would give up. In any case it appears that we must resign ourselves to the continuance of the existing interruption of the Prava frontage by the presence there of the Naval Yard, and in the circumstances we cannot well protest.
103
Health, there should not be a house unfit for habitation in Hongkong, how does this square with the, admission in section 12 that it may be advisable, in certain events, to "employ a very large number of men" (not surely our present meagre staff, “in February, and disinfect the whole city quarter by quarter"; while if that does not succeed, the question will remain what structural changes shall be carried out, and what property resumed, destroyed, rebuilt "a question which involves pro- perty worth from £100,000 to £150,000 per
works in this Colony, there are two sets of considerations, engineering and strategical. From the engineers' point of view it would not be hard to select inore than one better site than that between Queen's Road and the harbour. The engineers concerned in the present extension works are, we are told by our London correspondent, against the retention of the present ground. Over in Kowloon, as has been pointed out by writers of weight, there are at least two situations which from the engineering point of view offer far greater facilities than are now available. There is the question of expense, of course - £150,000, we learn, have already THE HONGKONG GOVERNMEMT acre, as His Excellency points out in section
been spent by the Government. The sale of the ground, however, would, at the price which land in a central situation now com- mands, dispose of this objection. The waste of time involved by abandonment of the present operations and a recommencement on a totally different site is more serious, but this might be faced if the compensa- tions from the new location of th Dock were enormous. From the engineers' stand- point, the rejected scheme is, an admirable
one.
|
AND THE PETITION.
(Daily Press, 1st August.)
We have reproduced already part of the blue-book just issued by the local Govern- ment with regard to the Sunitary condition | of this Colony and the consequent petition of over 1,000 residents to the Colonial Office; and we publish three more letters to-day. The remainder of the blue-book does not easily lend itself to quotation, owing to the length of the memoranda attached and to the fact that partial quotation might appear to do an injustice to those who drew them up. We propose, however, to consider a few points of the Government case as set forth in the blue-book,
-
or
13, wherein he appeals for the advice of an eminent sanitarian on the point?
Next in order we may take the Hon. J. H. STEWART LOCKHART's letter to the Chamber of Commerce on the 18th ult. This encloses two reports, by the Hon. W. CHATHAM and the Hon. F. H. MAY respec- tively, on the measures taken to give effect to Mr. CHADWICK's recommendations of 1882. H.E. the Governor thinks, the letter says, that the two reports will " satisfy the coinmunity that the Government has not lagged behind but has rather been in advance of local public opinion in this important matter." The backbone of the case presented in the reports is supplied by the Hon. F. H. MAY, who exercises his ingenuity in collecting the cases in which We may take first H.E. the Governor's the Unofficial Members of the Legislative letter of the 5th July to the Secretary of Council, supported by the public Press, State for the Colonies, which, though written, have in the past opposed Government as Sir HENRY A. BLAKE himself states in measures of Sanitary improvement, the his letter of the 13th July, before he had implication being that the good Goveru- seen the Petition, nevertheless contains atment has been prevented by the bad least one point which has an important Unofficials and still more wicked Press from bearing on some of the arguments in that making Hongkong a healthy town. By a document. For the rest, the letter is a convenient use of asterisks in his main plainly written account of the recent plague quotation from the Daily Press of the 26th epidemic, and to one statement only can September, 1887, the Captain Superinten- strong objection be made. That statement dent of Police apparently thinks to clinch is contained in the words in section 6: his argument as to the opposition to the eThe public Press published letters and Government's measures for the relief of articles that increased the alarm." etc. On overcrowding. He quotes the following behalf of the public Press we must resent words:" One of the chief grievances of this imputation. Whatever panic there was "residents in this Colony, Chinese and this spring was most certainly not due to the Europeans alike, is the great scarcity of action of the Press. Such letters as appeared house accomo lation and the consequent were mostly of the nature of complaints bigh rents. This grievous state of against the way in which the work of fight- things the Government proposes to make ing the plague was or was not carried
worse and worse by enforcing lawa out. No articles of an alarmist character "against overcrowding. Every person is to were published in the papers of this have 300 cubic feet of space to sleep in, Colony. H.E., we would venture to sug although even supposing the house accom- gost, is treating outspokenness of language modation were aimply sufficient to afford as though it were language calculated to this space many of the Chinese would cause undue alarm. When we consider that probably prefer more company and less thirty Europeans cases and eleven European
Less than 300 feet is not deaths have occurred during the epidemic "dangerous in a climate like Hongkong it is surprising that there has been so little when people keep the doors and win- panic among the European residents. It dows open all the year round.
On will hardly be contended that the alarm this point the Government has shown among the Chinese was excited by the public itself absolutely impervious to reason." Press. The point, however, to which we de The Hon. F. H. MAY having omitted to sired to refer in the letter under consideration quote the very paragraph of the whole is contained in the remark in section 7, when article which explains the opposition to the H.E. says: I have no reason to believe, Government's proposals, we will submit it to that the Sanitary Staff are not doing their | our readers, official and unofficial, and leave duty faithfully, and if they are, then with it to their sense of fairness to say whether the large powers given to the Medical the memorandum gives a true picture of "Officer of Health there should not be in our attitude in 1887. We wrote:-
Hongkong a house unfit for habitation, 66 nor should
any house be permitted to continue in an insanitary state." been amply pointed out in these columns that it is not on the side of attention to duty, but in the matter of numbers that the Sanitary Staff is lacking. Hongkong is in this respect undermanned, compared with large towns at home, though sanitation is an even more important point in the East than it is in the United Kingdom. With regard to the statement that with the powers given to the Medical Officer of
There remains the strategical side of the question, and here it is that the whole strength of the case against any transfer lies. The present situation of the Dockyard is such that it is admirably sheltered from attack. Only two channels approach it, both strongly guarded. A bombardinent from the mainland hardly enters into the realms of possibility, and to such docks at Yaumati or Kowloon would be still more vulnerable. From the sea, that is to say from the south side of the island, it would be almost in possible to damage the present Naval Yard. Guns are not constructed with the trajectory requisite to train them on to it, the height of the Peak and the other hills Laking an excellent barrier. A chance shot might possibly be dropped in the vicinity, but it would Le inhabitants of Kowloon who would have most to fear from an attempted bombard- ment of this nature from the South. On the other hand a site on the Kowloon peninsula, whether on the cast or west, would not be thus naturally defended against a naval assault, and a situation at Yaumati would in addition be exposed, owing to the numerous channels in its vicinity, to torpedo attacks. The present Government has been severely criticised for the alleged exposed location of the new works at Gibraltar, and must therefore be all the more loth to incur further reproof on this score. The problem of ren- dering docks on the mainland defensible is one which might well prove impossible of solution. On this ground the Admiralty can hardly be expected to yield to the transfer scheme, admirable as it is for the improvement of Victoria. There is thus an apparent conflict between the naval and civil interests; but with regard to this it must be remembered that the maintenance of Hongkong as the leading naval station of the Far East, with a safe dock for warships, is not only vital to the Empire as a whole, but also to those who have elected to curry on their professions under its protection. Destroy Hongkong's naval strength and you strike a damaging blow at the growth and commerce of the place as well. Such an argument as this is hard to meet, and much as we must all desire the improvement of the city on the lines of the scheme which has just been rejected, the naval authorities must be above all entitled to the principal voice in the matter. As for the removal of the military offices, etc., from the neighbour hood of the Naval Yard, that is quite a different matter. Such a step is to be
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The Bill says every adult is to have 300 cubic space of feet whenever and in whatever district the Governor chooses to proclaim. In the great scarcity of houses the enforcement of such a regulation could not fail to cause great hardship and suffering. Meu already crushed down with "the exorbitant rents they now have to pay, would be turned out of their houses and
•have to seek fresh quarters, for which they would have to pay still more. The pressure would exert itself upward, through the better class of Chinese, until
14
of