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5. URBAN AND RURAL SERVICES. · cont'd.
strictly non-essential occupiers of building sites will have to be decided, together with planned zoning to secure the best use of building land, having in mind the settlement of a stabilized population.
The ultimate aim is to have all sewage of the Victoria urban area water borne. At present about one- fifth of the daily amount is dealt with in this way. The rest is disposed of under the bucket system. However, buckets are old and leaky and need replacing, only there are no replacements. I attended a meeting of the various departments concerned in an attempt to find a solution for this urgent problem. Discussion seemed to favour the idea, as a temporary measure, of conveying the untreated sewage by barges to castle Peak for treatment in tanks in the hope that the matured article would be suitable for use by the Chinese agriculturalists on the mainland. However, no one knows what effect a comparatively short stay in the tanks would have on the disease carrying propensities of Chinese night soil and further research on this point is needed. Provided a procedure that would ensure a safe article was evolved there would be a strong case for employing the processed nightsoil derived from the mainland to nourish the hardly pressed fields of the agriculturalist there. Col. Scharff of the Malayan Service äid some useful work on this problem but I don't know whether his researches sufficiently cover the position in Hong Kong.
In rural areas, whenever the occasion permits, action should be taken to establish Rural Health Boards on the lines adopted in other Colonies. There should be, for these areas, a plan of development formed under the advice and guidance of a social welfare organization dealing with this question on the broadest lines and representing all interests concerned.
References to urban and rural services will be found in a number of sections of the report.
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