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sewage and kitchen refuse are kept. It has been stated—and this gives me an opportunity of contradicting it—that in the regulations then proposed there was no reference to water-closets, but I find in the printed paper, which the Council had before it as long ago as 1874, regulations
1. for the water supply; and amongst these regulations were the following—
Every boiler, urinal, and water closet, in which water supplied by the Government is used (other than water closets in which hand flushing is employed) shall be served only through a cistern or service-box and without a stool-cock, and there shall be no direct communication from the main pipes to any boiler, urinal, or water closets.
Every water closet cistern, or water closet service-box hereafter fitted or fixed in which water supplied by the Government is to be used, shall have an efficient waste-preventing apparatus, so constructed as not to be capable of discharging more than two gallons of water at each flash.
Every urinal-cistern in which water supplied by the Government is used other than public urinal-cisterns, having attached to them a self-closing apparatus, shall have an efficient waste-preventing apparatus, so constructed as not to be capable of discharging more than one gallon of water at each flush.
Every down-pipe hereafter fixed for the discharge of water into the pan basin of any water closet shall have an internal diameter of not less than one inch and a quarter, and, if of lead, shall weigh not less than nine pounds to every lineal yard.
No pipe by which water is supplied from the mains to any water closet shall communicate with any part of such water closet, or with any apparatus connected therewith, except the service-cistern thereof.
All this was intended for a system which, as Mr. May, Mr. Whittall, my hon. friend Mr. Ryrie, and every man in the Colony said, was not suited to a tropical climate; above all, not suited to a Chinese population. They have a different system; their house sewage is carried off in a different way, and we can easily arrange to have it taken away by buckets with perfect regularity every morning. It is necessary to dwell on this, gentlemen, because there is no doubt the original scheme, which would have cost so much money and have added twenty per cent. to the house-tax, contemplated making this Colony into a great water closet Colony, because we have it on the statute book "no house can be constructed unless with a water closet or privy." It was a clause copied from an English Act: I believe it was a bad clause in England, but an extremely bad clause in Hongkong. With the large sum the Legislature could vote they were to supply sufficient water for a water closet in every house. To that I object, and I believe you would all object. However that may be, it is necessary now to remind you of it. The important fact remains that we have at this moment what I would call a reasonable supply, namely, fourteen gallons per head man, woman, and child—during a certain part of the year, and not less than five and three-quarter gallons during the rest of the year.
And as regards the fire-tanks, I mentioned on a former occasion that, under instructions from the Secretary of State, I had asked the Surveyor-General to amalgamate the fire scheme and the general scheme, and give me a report on it. The minute went to the Surveyor-General in April, 1880. A letter, calling Mr. Price's attention to what was required, was also written in April, 1880. The Acting Surveyor-General has now reported that he did not see that letter until after the Surveyor-General left. He is of opinion that a system of tanks along the side of the hill could be made perfectly efficient, combined with the general water scheme, and which would provide an abundant supply of water for the purpose of extinguishing fires and for any other purpose.
The actual estimate of Mr. Bowdler is that in addition to what we now have the tanks now on the hill side would give us 370,000 gallons per day during the dry season, and he would undertake to do this at the cost of $18,450. Had that scheme been taken in hand in April, 1880, Mr. Bowdler is of opinion it would have been completed in July, 1881. Nothing has been done. The Surveyor-General entertained a decided opinion that the views of Her Majesty's Government could not be carried out. I transmitted his views to the Secretary of State and he has now been placed in communication with Mr. Rawlinson, and I have very little doubt a scheme will soon be devised between them by which the fire tanks on the hills will be united with the general water supply, and then, very likely, we will be able to get what Mr. Bowdler anticipates, four or five gallons per head additional, and that I believe will be an ample supply for all purposes.
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