2 ..... tanks have been provided. The original scheme of having sewer outfalls at North Point and Kennedy Town and the pumping system in connection with those outfalls were abandoned owing to the making of the Praya Reclamation and the probability of a Reclamation in front of Praya East. The question of outfalls is fully discussed in Mr. Chadwick's reports of 1890 referred to below. In these reports the outfalls for the Central and Western parts of the City are mentioned, and it is stated that in the Eastern District "it is proposed to discharge the sewage by means of numerous outfalls into the harbour in front of the district" pending future developments as to reclamation or otherwise.
Mr. Chadwick concluded these reports with the statement that "the most essential difference between the project now submitted and that prepared by Mr. Cooper is in the number and position of the outfalls but at the time of the preparation of Mr. Cooper's report the Praya Reclamation was not projected."
It is worth noting that Mr. R. K. Leigh, one of the signatories of the Petition, in a criticism he wrote on Mr. Cooper's proposed scheme of drainage actually condemned the proposed intercepting main drain and pumping stations, but now in common with the other Petitioners he complains that they have not been constructed.
The enclosures B. and C. also show that the statement made in paragraph 19 that among other works no Depôts for Cattle have been provided; that nothing has been done since 1893 to limit the height of buildings (paragraph 22); that Ordinance 34 of 1899 was enacted "in an emasculated form, the more drastic remedies recommended by the Sanitary Board with a view to the betterment of the Sanitary condition of the Colony having been deleted therefrom" (paragraph 23); and that nothing has been done since 1894 to improve the Sanitary condition of the Colony (paragraph 25), are without exception contrary to fact.
As regards Ordinance 34 of 1899 the only important modifications of the recommendations of the Sanitary Board were in respect of the open spaces required in rear of existing buildings and of the restriction of the height of buildings.
The Board's original recommendations on the first point went far beyond what Mr. Cooper and Dr. Clark himself had suggested to the Commissioners.
Dr. Clark, whose remarks are quoted and who has sat on the Sanitary Board, agreed to the alterations, by which the requirements for spaces in rear of existing buildings were modified and to the restriction as to height of buildings made to apply only to houses erected on land sold after the passing of the Ordinance.
It should be remembered that the difficulty which confronted the Government in these particular matters was the structural difficulty in providing large spaces except on re-construction of the houses and the question of compensation to owners of property if the law relating to the height of buildings were made retrospective.
5. Having briefly dealt with the facts which the statements B. and C. serve to elucidate, we now propose to examine shortly those points in the Petition which we have not yet touched upon.
In paragraph 7 the Petitioners complain by implication of the want of public baths. We would point out that in comparatively few cities are public baths provided. In many, as in Shanghai for example, they are provided by private enterprise. It is true that Public Bath Houses have not been built here till the current year when they were undertaken on the Governor's own initiative.
It is not a matter of great surprise that among the larger and more pressing works carried out in the Colony this item did not find a place earlier.
6. The statement quoted in paragraph 9 that Mr. Chadwick had recommended that the ground surfaces of all dwellings should be concreted and that such concreting was not required till 1894 is inaccurate. What Mr. Chadwick recommended was that earthen floors should be prohibited and this recommendation was given effect to by Section 62 of the Public Health Ordinance 1887 which provided that "the floor of every area and of every basement storey shall be properly asphalted, paved or covered over with a layer of good concrete at least 9 inches thick."
The ground floors of a majority of houses were accordingly paved with tiles till the law of 1894 made an absolutely impervious material compulsory.
Enclosure D. Ordinance 1 of 1886. Ordinance 2 of 1893.
In the same paragraph the Petitioners refer to the want of an Improvement Fund and complain that one has not been established. In this connection we would invite attention to the enclosed statement marked D. which shows the total revenue and expenditure and separately the expenditure on Public Works Extraordinary for each year from 1883 to 1900 inclusive, together with the expenditure of the second of the two loans raised by the Colony during that period.
It should also be borne in mind that in 1894 the financial condition of the Colony appeared to the Unofficial Members of Council to be in such an unsatisfactory state that they asked for and obtained the appointment of a Retrenchment Committee with a view to effecting retrenchments in the public expenditure.
The financial returns in enclosure D. show that the ordinary revenue of the Colony was not sufficient to meet the expenditure on account of public works extraordinary, without having recourse to two loans amounting in all to £400,000. It is difficult therefore to see how an Improvement Fund could have been created except by a further loan or by increased taxation. It would have been undesirable for many reasons to increase the public debt of the Colony and any rise in taxation would most certainly have been unacceptable.
7. With regard to paragraph 10 it may be noted that there was no necessity to offer a premium for the best design of Chinese house, because several designs have been gratuitously offered. A recommendation was made that a block of model Chinese houses should be built in Taipingshan but the enterprise did not commend itself to the Government who had spent over $800,000 of Public Funds in resuming and laying out the property.
8. In paragraph 13 the Petitioners touch on the question of hawking in the public streets. By means of hawkers the poorer classes can obtain food cheaper than they can in the markets. One of the predisposing causes of Plague is want of nutrition, and various Committees which have examined this subject have advocated the retention of the system under a certain control. This control is exercised by the Police, and officers are especially told off to prevent nuisances being created by the hawkers.
The complaints referred to were made by an individual member of the Sanitary Board, and on investigation were found as far as any actual nuisance was concerned to be exaggerated.
9. In paragraph 15 an extract is quoted from a letter of the Chamber of Commerce in 1894 in which the Chamber stated that there existed a widespread belief that Mr. Chadwick's scheme of drainage had not been carried out on the original lines, and that the separate system had been more generally applied than was intended.
It will be remembered that in 1889 questions having arisen as to the system of sewerage to be adopted, Mr. Chadwick re-visited the Colony to initiate upon his own responsibility a scheme of drainage. Mr. Chadwick made three reports dated the 1st of July, 1890, and published in the Government Gazette of the 27th September, 1890. To the extract from the report on the sewerage of the High Level district quoted in the enclosure B. we would add the following extract from the report on the drainage of the Lower, Western and Central Districts of Victoria:
"In the report on the sewerage of the high level district the objections to the use of storm-water channels for the conveyance of sewage were fully set forth. These objections apply with even greater force in the case of the low level district, where, in many places, the storm-water channels are nearly level and accumulate not only sewer-tainted air but also sewage deposit.
The methods for the improvement of the drainage of this, and other districts, suggested in my report of 1882 have not been tried. This is fortunate, for my subsequent experience leads to the conclusion that they would not have remedied completely the evils which existed then and which still exist. It will now be necessary to re-sewer the whole district with earthenware pipes; and to divert the sewage proper, or dry-weather-flow of the sewers from the storm-water channels, which are not and cannot be made suitable for its reception. The existing stone channels therefore should revert to their legitimate use, the conveyance of storm-water from the surface of the district and from the hills above it."
In his report on the drainage of the Eastern District Mr. Chadwick wrote "The principles as to self-cleansing sewers, admission of rain-fall and ventilation which have been laid down in previous reports apply to this district with equal force."
He concluded this series of exhaustive reports with the following remarks "In conclusion I beg to record my obligation to Mr. Cooper...