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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
to offer any apology. For this is the one occasion in which we, Members of this Council, may be permitted to voice our opinion on the wider issues concerning the Colony.
Sir, I support the motion before the Council.
MR. LI YIU-BOR: Mr. Chairman, in the first place, I should like to congratulate you and your predecessor on a year of satisfactory progress which has just ended. I have no doubt that the Urban Council under your able leadership will continue to serve the best interest of the public in the coming year.
In the meeting of this Council held last April I spoke against pornographic literature and obscene films generally, and I am pleased to say that since then there has been some improvement in the situation. However, there is no ground for complacency, for these things will remain with us so long as children can be tempted to read or see them. We should, on the other hand, intensify our efforts to combat this great social evil, and I invite the Education Department, which is entrusted with the task of educating the young, to join the other departments concerned in this important work.
Preventive measures are very useful in themselves, but constructive measures will play a more useful part in our campaign against pornography. As long as children are engaged in interesting activities in their leisure, they will have no time to read bad books or magazines. In this connexion, I should like to suggest that the proposal, put forward by Mr. SALES and passed by this Council some two or three years ago, to build indoor stadia in various parts of the urban area, should be implemented by Government. The cost of building and maintaining these stadia may be high, but I firmly believe that any expenditure in the interest of the rising generation is a sound investment.
In his speech in the Legislative Council meeting held last month the Honourable FUNG Ping-fan spoke in favour of assistance to private schools, and I fully support his views. To my mind, the best way of assisting these schools is to provide them with libraries for the children. A library of a thousand booklets will cost about $500, and the cost of providing a thousand such libraries is not more than $1 million. I suggest that a pilot scheme be started with the very small schools which do not enjoy library facilities. At the same time this Council should establish, or encourage the establishment of, public libraries in various districts.
In the United States and many parts of Europe youngsters are forbidden by law to enter bars or cabarets. Here in Hong Kong we do not have laws to prevent young people under a certain age patronizing these establishments. I feel that it is now high time to introduce legislation to deliver our children from such evil.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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I understand that a School Medical Service to benefit more than half a million children will come into operation in September with the help of general practitioners, but I also learn with regret that the 20,000-odd teachers who are in charge of children in aided and private schools are excluded from this service. Of course, I am not suggesting that the teachers should pay the same charges as the children, but I feel strongly that it is unfair to exclude them.
As my colleagues Dr. Woo and Mr. CHEUNG Wing-in will speak on the new education policy, I do not propose to make any comments. What I would like to say is this: that the introduction of any new policy in education is a matter which will affect many future generations and that in the interest of the children, parents and teachers should be fully consulted.
A few doctors have complained to me that when they go on emergency calls, they are sometimes more or less forced to park their cars on the sides of the streets, where there are no parking facilities, and that they are often fined because of this. I wonder whether the Police should not use their discretionary powers in genuine cases of emergency which can be proved to the satisfaction of the Police officers then on duty there.
I should like to make use of this opportunity to congratulate the Commissioner for Resettlement on his achievements of the past year. So far more than half a million squatters have already been rehoused, although an equal number will have to be resettled in the next few years. You will agree, Sir, that "a block-in-8-days" is also no mean achievement on the part of the engineering staff of the Public Works Department.
I have said on a previous occasion that resettlement is a problem too huge for Hong Kong to handle without assistance from the outside world, and I hold the same view to-day. We realize that only a limited portion of our budget can be ear-marked for the work of resettlement, although we all feel that on humanitarian grounds we should do much more. What Government should do is therefore to strike the golden mean, that is, to accelerate the resettlement programme without unduly disrupting the overall economy of the Colony. Meanwhile we should seek assistance from organizations in other parts of the world which are interested in our "problem of the people".
Hong Kong is fortunate in having really devoted workers in voluntary agencies which cater for the needs of the less fortunate amongst us. These selfless workers have done, and are still doing, much to alleviate the hard lot of settlers in our estates and areas, and to them the community at large owes a profound debt of gratitude.
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