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Secondly, the rent advance scheme. It is not true that Government is trying to make it costly and difficult to obtain resettlement. In some respects, Government's scheme is more generous than the proposals of the Working Party. Mr. CHEONG-LEEN has evidently not read paragraph 17 of the White Paper carefully, nor the speeches made by the Colonial Secretary in Legislative Council. Thus,
(i) tenants from dangerous buildings will be allowed one year in which to pay the advance rent;
(ii) interest will be paid on the advance payments until the people concerned are resettled. This will be found in paragraph 17* of the White Paper. I am authorized to say that the rate of interest will be 3%;
(iii) on resettlement, they will pay a reduced rent for ten years. On the question of hardship, and the amount of the advance payment, I will quote from the Colonial Secretary's speech winding up the debate in Legislative Council on 30th September:-
"I doubt if we are in a position to say categorically to what extent and in how many cases the deposit required will exceed the compensation due. But, clearly, where special hardship arises we may have to consider special arrangements.
In any event in the light of my honourable Friends' remarks I would like to say that Government is willing to give further thought to the exact details of these proposals."
I turn now to the substance of the motion which reads:-
"This Council urges Government to consider as a matter of urgency what further steps can be taken in order to arrive at the target figure of 120,000 for the fiscal year."
Firstly, there is no target of 120,000: that figure is taken from a statement I made at the July meeting when I forecast the number of people we might resettle during what I prefer to call the financial year.
Secondly, the target up to now has been an average of 100,000 a year for ten years from 1959.
Thirdly, the new aim is not 150,000 a year, but 900,000 in six years.
Fourthly, it is by no means certain that we shall not reach the figure of 120,000 this financial year.
* It should be paragraph 18, and the Commissioner corrected this during a later intervention in the debate.
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I understand that my friend the Director of Public Works will be elaborating on these points, but I would mention one example. On account of the wet weather, 9,000 people whom we expected to resettle towards the end of September will now be resettled in October. But this should not affect the numbers whom we would otherwise resettle during the rest of the year. Finally, even if we cannot achieve the figure of 120,000, there is nothing that can be done about it in the next six months.
For these reasons I will oppose this motion.
MR. K. A. WATSON:- Mr. Chairman, may I comment on the question of this advance rent scheme which was adopted by the Legislative Council, and to which Mr. CHEONG-LEEN has referred. It is different from "key money" and I think it is a very important distinction. Mr. CHEONG-LEEN has called it "key money"-which it is not. It is an advance of rent; the money will be returned to the tenant eventually in the form of reduced rent. Now this means that they will in fact be better off than under the proposals of the Working Party which entail giving up and losing forever 85% of their compensation. Whether the figure of $400 a head is an equitable one is another matter. In the Legislative Council debate, several Members queried this. I myself pointed out that this might in some cases be more than the amount of compensation that they will get and suggested that this condition might be reconsidered. Mr. P. C. Woo recommended a reduction of $200, and as Mr. BARTY has pointed out, the Colonial Secretary did agree to reconsider this particular condition. Now the Appointed Members appreciate the disappointment felt by Mr. CHEONG-LEEN at the possible failure to reach our resettlement target. We do not feel that there are any particular reasons to oppose this motion, but at the same time as we doubt whether this motion will do anything to expedite matters, the Appointed Members will abstain from voting on it.
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS: Mr. Chairman, in respect of the building of resettlement estates, I think that Mr. CHEONG-LEEN's motion is very misleading.
Dealing first with the general case. While typhoons and rainstorms seriously delay site formation and general civil engineering works, they do not delay actual building works to anything like the same extent. The reason for this is, of course, that work on buildings can re-commence almost immediately after a storm (indeed certain phases of the work which are inside the building can proceed during wet weather). As resettlement blocks take from around six to twelve months to build from the time piling commences and as rainstorms and typhoons usually occur during the months of June to September, it will be apparent that such storms will not seriously affect production of resettlement units during the year of the storm.
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