HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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Before leaving the subject of Public Works, we desire to recommend to the Government that, instead of maintenance contracts relating to Public Works being let for the calendar year from the 1st January to the 31st December, the contracts for such works for next year be let from 1st January to the 30th September, and, thereafter the 1st October, 1933 to the 30th September, 1934, and for similar periods in the succeeding years.
Our object in making this recommendation is to avoid the shifting over of contracts to a new Contractor in the very middle of our dry season, which is the most favourable climatic period for carrying on with maintenance continuously and without any break.
We hope that the Government will be able to adopt this suggestion.
The last Item of Public Works, which is referred to in the Hon. Colonial Secretary's speech is the new big dam at Shing Mun.
The prompt commencement of this work is of such very vital importance to this Colony that the Unofficial members of this Council feel that notwithstanding the statement of the Hon. Colonial Secretary to the effect that "the Government is satisfied that the Consulting Engineers are fully aware of the situation, and will make a beginning in time to ensure that the opportunities afforded by the coming dry weather are not wasted," they, the Unofficial members, would be guilty of a breach of duty to the Public if they did not urge the Government to send a telegram to the Consulting Engineers upon this subject.
In business matters it is customary to emphasize the extreme importance attached to urgency by sending one or more hurry-up telegrams, and, if there ever was a subject on which a S.O.S. message is desirable it is the promptest commencement with the erection of the Shing Mun dam.
Whatever reluctance Government may have hitherto entertained to the sending of such a telegram, we cannot understand the continuance of such reluctance, having regard to the fact that the dry season is just upon us and that the Colony is even now still without any information as to when we may expect the plans for the new dam from England.
Until we get those plans, obviously no progress towards the the erection of the dam can be made.
We, therefore, unanimously, urge that the following telegram be now sent to the Consulting Engineers by the Government, namely
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