HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
113
We deplore the fact that our Budget for Public Works Extraordinary for 1938 has been reduced to so low a limit, because we consider that a modern hospital for infectious diseases, and a new Volunteer Headquarters are urgently required. The last-named building is a disgrace to a first-class Colony, and we suggest that (whilst preserving the present Volunteer parade-ground) a new Headquarters and a second parade-ground ought to be provided by the Government. We suggest that the cost of these two buildings can properly be met out of Loan Account, just as appropriately as the cost of the new Central Market.
We hope that the recent complaints by the Kowloon Residents Association in regard to the Kowloon Mortuary will receive attention, and we should like to be informed how far the scheme for a new leper settlement and a clinic in connection therewith has progressed.
Whilst agreeing in the necessity for a new Mental Hospital, we hope that the expensive plans which have been prepared in the past will be abandoned.
We are glad to note that early next year air-mail will probably be carried at ordinary rates, though at a considerable expense to the Colony in subsidies.
Passing on to the Imports and Exports Department, we are struck by various disquieting features which are revealed in the Report of the Superintendent of Imports and Exports for 1936. For instance, paragraph 19 speaks of "the over-whelming growth of the menace of heroin pills," whilst paragraph 35 states that during 1936 “in 526 cases, 3,606,707 pills and 771 ounces of heroin were seized, a large majority of which were found in pill factories." Paragraph 42 estimates the number of heroin divans in this Colony as being in the neighbourhood of 2,000, whilst paragraph 49 shows that this disgraceful traffic has invaded the New Territories, with main centres at Un Long, Sheung Shui and Taipo.
We are therefore, glad to learn that the Government has in hand new legislation to cope with heroin divans and pill factories, which will, in due course, be submitted to this Council for consideration.
We would urge, in this connection, that the keeping of a heroin divan ought to be added to the list of offences which are punishable by flogging. In China we believe that purveyors of noxious drugs and persistent drug addicts are shot.
We view the proposals for the construction of a third Court at the Central Magistracy with mixed feelings, because we consider that the number of cases tried by the Magistrates or, to put the matter in another way, the considerable increase in various forms of crime is due to a great extent to the somewhat too luxurious accommodation for prisoners which is provided in the new four million dollar gaol at
177