41
SANITARY DEPARTMENT REPORT.
For the work to be done the Commissioners do not
In their
consider that this department is overstaffed.
opinion there are only two methods by which retrenchment
can be effected. Firstly that street cleansing be done
by contract. The Head of the Sanitary Department stated
that this would be much cheaper than the present system
of doing the work departmentally, though he doubted
whether it would be done as efficiently. The risk of
The
this cannot be avoided if savings are to be effected.
2. Secondly the replacement of European Sanitary
Inspectors by Asiatics. This policy has been adopted in
Malaya, and has proved satisfactory. There the only
Europeans are the chief inspectors. It is claimed for
the European that he has greater integrity and is more
reliable. He is however very much more expensive.
Commissioners recommend that the scheme be given a
thorough trial. It might be necessary in the first
instance to obtain through the Malayan authorities a
nucleus of Asiatic inspectors from that country.
30 The Commissioners considered the question of
incinerators and the flushing of streets with sea water.
They were glad to learn from the Head of the Sanitary
Department that the latter is already practiced with the
consequent relief to the water supply. Regarding the former
they regard the capital cost as prohibitive. They would
moreover point out that the evil of dumping refuse at sea
is mild compared with that of discharging sewage direct into
the harbour, without first passing it through a septic tank.
4. They would invite the attention of the Head of the
Sanitary Department to the fact, that limitation of the
number of hawkers involves Government in the cost of
incarceration of those persons, who commit the offence of
hawking without a licenco.
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