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ASE
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329
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What is needed in Hongkong is a bold and at the same time effective measure to enable the Government to acquire in an othodez manner such areas of property as are insanitary, the Government of course adequately compensating the owners so far as their vested interests suffer damage thereby. If it were either beneficial or equitable to do otherwise, your petitioners would naturally ask the question "of what use then is the covenant for quiet enjoyment which is implied by the Law in every Lease of land.”
If the above suggestions were adopted and properly carried. out Hongkong, from being a grossly insanitary and badly laid out Colony, would become quiet the opposite in each respect.
To sum up the matter (so far as this clause of the Petition is concerned) it may be said that the Government has the choice of two alternative policies
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(a). A Niggardly and Inefficient one,
(2). A Sound, Economical and Necessary one.
Your Petitioners cannot for one moment believe that the Go- vernment will-as they would be doing, were they to suffer the enactment of the present Ordinance-choose the former policy.
13. That the insanitary condition of Hongkong according to the experts has been caused.
Firstly. By crowding together of too many houses on too sinali a space;
Secondly-By insanitary defects in the design of dwelling houses, and
Thirdly: By overcrowding of the inhabi- ants in these houses.
To remove the first cause, compensation and resumption by the Government is recommended but the Bill fails to adequately provide for such contingency.
To remedy the second cause, a number of clauses drastic and arbitrary to a degree have been inserted, compelling the individual land-owners, without proper compensation, to make structural altera- tions and substantial sacrifices either immediately or at some fature date on re-crection or alteration.
To alleviate the third cause the reduction of the number of in- habitable floors in buildings, the virtual abolition of cubicles, and the great increase in the floor and enbie air space, are some of the
means purporting to be devised by the Bill, but totally unaccom- panied by any nefinite scheme for the spread of the population and for the Housing of the working classes and poorer inhabitants, who will be the most affected by such measures.
14. That your Petitioners fail to understand why, in dealing with the first of the above mentioned causes, the Government should purport to offer compensation, and in dealing with the others of such causes, should fail to do so especially as the Government are undoubtedly primarily responsible for the present insanitary state of the Colony, in so far as (inter alia) the crowding together of too many houses on too small a space and the insanitary defects in the designs of existing dwelling houses and the overcrowding therein are con- cermed. Your Petitioners therefore submit that, if the land-owners in the former case are to be considered entitled to receive full com- pensation, the land-owners in the latter be treated in like manner.
15. That the Bill is further objectionable in that it contains a series of new provisions which will, if enacted, not only press hardly upon land-owners but be also incapable of enforcement at the present Ás ex- or at any future time, in the great majority of instances. amples, there may be cited the case of the central houses of blocks of buildings, where it will be impossible to supply the demand for lateral windows unless every third house is resumed and taken down. Also, in the case of back to back houses the formation of a scavenging lane can only be rendered possible many years hence, and even then there are many places where it will be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to ever provide such lanes.
16. That your Petitioners beg to reiterate their previous argu- ments and submit, that with an adequate system of compensation it will be easy for the Government in every respect to proceed with sanitary improvements, thoroughly, beneficially, expeditiously, and uniformly, thus avoiding the necessity for waiting years until the existing houses are taken down and rebuilt ere their sanitary de- fects can be remedied. The confidence of investors in house pro- perty will be restored and maintained, and the improvements will have been effected mainly at the cost of the public of Hongkong who at the same time will have been properly compensated in res- pect thereof, and will reap (as they ought) the benefits accruing therefrom, in the shape among other things of the suppression of those diseases which are dependent upon overcrowding and in- sanitary condition for their propagation.
17. That the Chinese community though willing and anxious to assist the Government in devising equitable means for the sanitary improvement of the Colony respectfully, but none the less strongly, protest against any measure which has the tendency as the Ordinance in this instance has--of inflicting loss and injury on in- dividual persons without reasonable and adequate compensation, even though the object is to benefit the general public.