224
THE HONGKÒNG WEEKLY PRESS AND Chinese the death rate was 21.4 as against 21.6 Hongkong obtain, in detail, from the Shanghai for the corresponding week of last year.
THE AMENDING ORDINANCE
The Government, having forwarded copies of the Bill amending the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance. 19 3, invited comment thereon.
Mr. LAU CHU PAX wrote the following
minute :-
The new bill, practically, resolves itself into four parts, viza :-
(a) To alter the constitution of the Sanitary
Board;
(b) To place the assistant medical officers on the same footing as the Medical Offer of Health; (c) To take away from the Sanitary Board certain powers as regards buildings and drains and confer them on the Building Authority, who is the Director of Public Works; and
:
(d) To give arbitrary powers to the Building
Authority.
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[April, 4, 1908.
attend and give any additional explanation that may be required.
to
I see no
Muncipality the duties of the Medical Officer of Health of that port. A comparison of the
Mr. FuNG WA CHUN also minuted-The duties performed by the Shaughai and the Public Health Bill, if passed in its present form, Hongkong Medical Officer of Health will bear will not only fail to improve the existing state out my contention that the Medical Ofoer of of affairs but will make matters worse, inasmuch Health of Hongkong has never properly per-as it partially deprives property owners of the formed the duties appertaining to such a right to appeal against the decision of the position.
Building Authority. The Director of Pablio In the old days, there was no Sanitary Depart Works being the only expert advisor to the ment working independently of the Board, Governor în Council it is most unlikely that which was created when Ordinance, No. 23 of he would advise otherwise than what he decided 1903 was enacted. As the Government firmly in his capacity as the Building Authority. The insists on having a more direct control of the appeal to the Governor in Council is most;
Of what 180 will it be sanitary affairs of the Colony and of the | ridiculous. administration of the sanitary laws through a appeal to the Council where the official majority is predominant and the Director of Public head, and as the Board is after all merely a semi-official organ, not having the powers of a
Works is their expert advisor? It is the decision municipality, I think, under the circumstances, of the Building Authority that property owders the appointment of a cadet as the Administrative will have to appeal against and the Building Head of the Sanitary Department is probably Authority is the Director of Public Works. the best arrangement that can be made. But, The question of the Medical Officer of Health still, I do not think he should, ex officio, be the being given a seat on the Board has been gone I am afraid, when the Bill in its present form president of the Sanitary Board. To the first into more than ouce and it has been always the unofficial place, the cadet so appointed will, in all pro- opposed very s rongly by has been passed into law, it will, instead of im proving the existing state of affairs, tend to bability, be a junior, and as a junior, is it members, it being ridiculous to make a servant make matters worse, so far as landed property advisable to allow him to rule his seniors of the of the Board their virtual master.
objection to a cadet being appointed the is concerned. Whatever people may say, the Sanitary Board? In the second place, I am reifare of the Colony depends, to a large extent, decidedly against the Head of the Sanitary De-administrative head of the Sanitary Depart- on the value of its land. By piling restricpartment being given the power to decide what ment, provided he has to carry out the decisions tions upon restrictions, while the value of the questions should be laid before the Board All of the Board and not be made their President,
that are distinctly nut of a
THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH. land already built upon is going down, the questions
Copies of the speech made by. His Excellency routine nature should be submitted to the building sites will not be looked upon with a
Board. If the Head of the Sanitary Depart-in the Legislative Council ou the first reading! favourable eye by investors, I am not in a position to say much of the European property ment is to decide, as at present, what questions of the Amending Ordinance were forwarded to owners, bat, in the case of the Chinese, I shall or shall not be submitted to the Board, the members. hear nothing but complaints, caused by the things will continue to run in the same rut a present measures, which should be relaxed and they have been during the last five years. My not made more stringent. The hardships and opinion on this subject, is that, as the Govern suffering inflicted on the properly-owners are
ment does not like to allow the members of the bound to reflect on their tenants and are,: Board to elect their own chairman, one of the consequently, bound to red-ot on the general senior official members should be appointed the welfare of the Colony. Personally, I do not president, the Registrar General being the mind what the law will be, as I am not much most suitable man, because the sanitary measures interested in landed property, owning a small introduced affect the Chinese inhabitants share in a me houses within the Furopean the most, and in promoting things sanitary Reservation, which are provided with more open it is desirable to enlist Chinese sympathy and space than any law requires. In my case, it co-operation. It may be argued, here, that by cannot, therefore, be said that I have my own making the Registrar General the president of axe to grind.
the Board, more work will be given to him than la has time to do. But as a member of the Board he must see all those questions, which are submitted to the Board, and, therefore, by making him the president of the Board, he will oply have, in addition, such other questions as the head of the Sanitary Dapartment has been in the habit of dealing with, without consulting the Board. As I have already stated, all the questions, which are not of a routine nature should be submitted to the Board. If this is done the Registrar General as a member of the Board will see as many questions as he would if he were the president of the Board, and, therefore, the making him the president will not increase his work. The administrative head of the Sanitary Department may be a member of the Board having the same status as the other members, since his position, plainly speaking, is similar to that of a select committee appointed by the Board to carry out its decisions.
Part (b) scarcely calls for any comments; so I will confine my observations to part, (a), (c)| and (d).
When the Medical Officer of Health was first appointed a member of the Sanitary Board, all the unofficial members, with the exo-p'ion of one, who happened to be absent from the Colony on leave, strongly objected to his appointment and, in order to show their objection in the mos, effective manner. they all resigned in a body Binge 1 joined the same question oropped up again, and the majority of the members agreed that the Medical Officer of Health, who is merely an adviser to the Board, should not be allowed to have 8 seat on the Board. He might be, and he is allowed at present, to attend the meetings of the Board and fully ex- plain his views, when invited to do so. But, in no case, should he be allowed to vote on his own recommendations. What I said at the time, I would repeat now. "I agree also that tha Medical Officer of Health as the Chief Executive Officer of the Board should not have a rest on the Board as in the whole Publio Health Acts of England the duties of the Medical Offoer of Health are, I find, to carry out the orders of the local authority or Board. It is absurd, therefore, that the Medical Officer of Health should vote at the meeting of the Sanitary
oard and take orders from it at the same time. All these years, what the Medical Offloor of Health has been doing is actually the work of sa engineer, & clerk and a sanitary inspector combined. I still maintain that as the medical adviser to the Board, or, in fact, to the Govern- mant, it would be more in accordance with his position and dignity, if he had confined his attention to the study of infectious and con- tagious diseases in the Colony, baoteriological researches and such other work as a medical man has been specially trained for, and not devoted almost all his time to superintending the sanitary inspectors, inspecting houses and conducting correspondence and prosecutions. If he had done his proper work, there would have been a saving to the Government in other directions. In order to emphasize my point, I strongly recommend that the Government of
Mr. LAU CHU PAK minuted-In addition to what I have already said in my last minute, I should like to refer to a few of the remarks in the introductory speech made in the Legislative Connoil at the first reading of the bill. That the five gentlemen who served, on the com. mission
- were. not representative of the community depends on how they were looked upon by the Government and the public. It would be interesting to know if the original. six would have been representative, had Mr. Pollock remained on as the Chairman. It may be said that the views of the same gentlemen, stated from time to time on the Sanitary Board, were also not representative of the views of the community, as the majori y, of ; them are Government nominees Since they were not looked upon as representing the community, why wore they ever appointed the Commission or Sanitary Board at on all? Did it not place them in a ridiculous powers of the position ? As regards the commission, which were, prac ically, said to have been exceeded, I submit that the commis- sion kept well within the terms of their appoint- ment, which might not have been correctly understood by the Chinese members, limited as their knowledge of English is, but certainly could hot have been misunderstood by the English members. To investigate the administration of the sanitary laws necessarily entails more or 1-as the investigation of the laws themselve In some cases, as it was discovered, unjust ad- ministration was dus to the injustice of the laws. I recollect, while the commission was was in constant com- sitting, the Chairman munication with the Government, and, doubt occurred 8.9 to any in respect of one point, I will state what whenever
the powers of the commission, the Gover- my reading of the bill has impressed upon me. As it stands at present, the bill curtails the nor or the Colonial Sécretary was consulted privileges of appeal enjoyed by the property before action was taken. Why was it not owners Under the principal ordinance the pointed out to the commission at the time, if Governor in Council confers almost absolute they had gone beyond the scope of their power on the Building Authority, in so much as investigation ? Personally, I have never enter. the owners of properly will in fature bave no tained the idea that the Colony should be ruled by a majority of the Sanitary Board, and other authority to appeal to against the decision
I am sure I can say as much, too, on behalf of of the Building Authority, except the Governor- in-Council, and the Building Authority, who is my colleagues. What was recommended and than the Director of Pablio thought desirable was that the Board shall be Works, is, I may say, the only expert given such powers and its system of work
in building matters on adviser
the organized in such a manner as not to make it Governor's Council. In short, the Building appear to be a mere figure-head. Authority will, practically, be the only judge of his, own action. I am, therefore, of the opinion that applications for modifications of, and exemptions from, the requirements of the ordinance should be considered by the Sanitary Board, and the Board's recommendations for warded to the Governor-in-Council as at present. But I am, also, of the opinion that when an application is considered in Council, the ap- plicant or his architect should be allowed to
I now come to parts (c) and (d), which can be more ad-quately and fully commented upon But, however, by experts than by laymen.
no
other
EXPECTORATION.
Correspondence having been submitted re- lative to expectoration in the streets of several American cities,
Mr. LAU CHU-PAK mi ̃n'ed-Prosecution or summary arrest is most undesirable. Many Chinese have approached me about this matter and requested me to oppose the introduction of any regulations. The mere posting up of notices, in their opinion, will be quite sufficient.
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