5
fare and these draft estimates include provision for a
Fisheries Research Station, and an Experimental Agricultural
Station in the New Territories. Provision for the building
of the Fisheries Research Station was included in the printed
estimates for the current year when it was anticipated that the
cost would be met by a grant from the Colonial Development Fund.
During the year a nucleus staff has been engaged with the
approval of this Council and it is now proposed to erect the building itself next year from Colonial funds. These schemes
should not only improve the nutrition of the population of Hong
Kong but help to make the Colony more self-supporting in the
matter of food supplies. The draft estimates also include
provision for the daily collection of nightsoil from the tenements
in the urban area by labour directly employed by the Sanitary
Department, in place of the present system under which the
nightsoil is removed by freelance coolies employed by the
householders.
This scheme is sponsored by the Urban Council
and strongly recommended by my Honourable friend the Director
of Medical Services, who is Government's adviser in health
matters. The Urban Council has suggested, and Government favours
the suggestion, that the additional annual expenditure of between
4 and 5 lakhs should be met by an increase of one per cent on the
rates. The existing unsatisfactory arrangements are estimated
to cost householders half a million dollars annually, and the
proposal will relieve those concerned of that expenditure and
spread it over the community gencrally, which seems only fair
in so far as the sewers provided for those whose tenements
have flush systems have been paid for likewise from taxation
by the community as a whole. Provision has also been made for
an Infectious Diseases Hospital, and a new Public Mortuary and
Disinfecting Station, Kowloon, for a new block for the Central
226