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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
But even if we get this increase in the establishment, we will not get the men unless the pay is right. A very grudging increase has been made by Government, but whether it is enough to redress the balance, remains to be seen. At $236 a month, a man must either have private means before he goes to work for Government, or a wife and children to support him.
Mr. SALES thinks that the standard of cleanliness may have reached the point of hopelessness. If this is so, the time has come to consider abandoning our present method of garbage collection, by which rubbish is brought down from houses in dustbins and open baskets and deposited on the pavements. A refuse lorry is supposed to arrive within 5 minutes, but more often than not, huge, stinking piles of refuse lie in the streets for half a day or more, a blight and abomination on the face of our fair city, and a woeful commentary on the state of our civilization.
It seems that the logistics of our vehicles are getting much too complicated for any proper schedule to be maintained, resulting in a most unhygienic state of affairs. I would like to suggest an entirely new approach to the problem. This would be to build underground chambers under our pavements at each collection point, with pillar-box type erections above ground level. These would have swinging doors, through which garbage would be tipped, falling down a chute into the chamber below. Some time later, the refuse lorry would come along, perhaps at night, and remove the rubbish by suction.
The appearance of the streets would be improved, much more economical lorry schedules could be adopted, and there would be a very much greater convenience for the public, who could deposit their rubbish in the collection chambers at any time they wanted, and would not have to retain it in the rooms or in the streets until the lorries came by, or tip it into the harbour as they often do now.
Housing. Refuse collection is only one aspect of our dreadful housing conditions. For years we have said that much more energetic measures would have to be taken to solve the problems of squatters and slum clearance. There has been definite progress this year, with the adoption of the White Paper on Resettlement and Low-Cost Housing, in which almost all the recommendations of the Working Party and of this Council were accepted; the priorities, the increase in the quantity of building, the opening of areas where the homeless could build their huts, and the start of a pilot scheme of slum clearance.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Some concern has been expressed because only the top five out of the six categories of people recommended for resettlement, have been included. But this, I am afraid, was largely a matter of arithmetic. This sixth category would have amounted to 100,000 people a year or more. Having agreed that the maximum number for whom accommodation could be built was 150,000 a year, it is apparent that the first five categories will use it all up, and I consider it would be unfair to promise resettlement to others if there is no prospect of those promises being kept. They have not been forgotten. The Colonial Secretary has said that their needs would be kept in mind and that every effort would be made to bring them into the scheme as soon as possible. In the meanwhile those who are genuinely homeless (possibly as many as 60,000 a year), may become licensed squatters and will eventually have to be rehoused, and this is a major change in Government's attitude.
City Hall Museum and Art Gallery. In previous debates, both Mr. BERNACCHI and I have asked Government whether or not it wanted a proper Museum and Art Gallery for Hong Kong. Last year we were informed by you, Sir, that it did, and we were asked to submit our recommendations. With the assurance that we shall get adequate premises for this, we are now proceeding with detailed planning. We have agreed that the new building should contain galleries for Archaeology, Chinese Antiquities, Ethnography, Geology and Geography, Flora and Fauna, Local History, an Art Gallery and Special Exhibitions, with a space of between 28,000 square feet and 31,000 square feet, with another 16,000 square feet for offices, workrooms and storerooms. As I have said earlier, five sub-committees have been formed and 29 expert advisers have been invited to sit on them. These will make detailed analyses of what each section should contain, their collection or their manufacture, and the cost and the space required. When all the proposals have been received, they will be incorporated into a report which will be presented to the Council for approval and transmission to Government.
There is no early prospect of getting this new building for we have been warned that we cannot get it for at least three years. Fortunately some temporary relief from our present overcrowding will be obtained in August next year, when the 2nd floor of the City Hall High Block will be handed back to us by the Commerce and Industry Department. The imminent opening of the Middle Road Car Park in Kowloon, which includes space which was to have been let for commercial purposes, would offer a very suitable and central place for a Display Centre for the Commerce and Industry Department.
Traffic. In the Traffic Advisory Committee, on which I am the Council's representative, many important subjects have been discussed, including the deterioration of road surfaces, increasing congestion, new roads and road widening schemes, the replanning of junctions, statutory lorries plans of various areas, the problem of exhaust fumes from cars, and buses, parking facilities, new traffic control systems and many others.
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