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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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support the statement of aims for 1968. I can find no quarrel with the statement.
I do, however, find one lamentable omission. We have made no mention of what progress and improvements we intend to make with our Ward System. The Urban Council Wards can, I think, be said to be a major plank in the bridge which is surely to be built to cross the "gap" or as one newspaper put it the "canyon" between government and the people. This vital service is given voluntarily by the Urban Councillors, who are aware of the devastating need for it and who put in long and arduous hours at this work with little or no encouragement in certain departments and sections of the administration. I can, of course, only speak personally for my own ward district, which is a very vast one. The ward office becomes busier and busier and the types of problems more and more diverse. They are by no means all directly Urban Council business, but they are the business of Government which should be obliged for these problems being brought to attention. More and more people are finding that they can come for assistance and solution of their various problems and I consider, that if Government is really sincere in its desire to bridge the gap that exists between it and the people, then, better facilities should be provided in the Ward Offices for both the public and the Urban Councillors than exist at present. The waiting area is quite unsatisfactory in one of my ward offices, there are insufficient seats and no fans for hot weather; the room used for interviews is not by any means ideal. There is no filing cabinet for our records and no satisfactory filing system. The work is doubled by the fact that there is not an efficient shorthand typist available to whom letters can be dictated and typed by the following day for signature. At present letters have to be written in long hand or dictated to a typewriter, which is painfully slow, or dictated and taken in long hand by a very patient and pleasant voluntary assistant who comes with me to my Ward Office. The ward clerks are efficient as far as their capacities go. In some cases their English is limited, they are capable of registering names in a book and posting the letters written after sticking the envelopes, they keep the files in a semblance of order in a locked drawer. This is not nearly enough help. I consider the least Government can offer to us is the services of one or perhaps two first-class shorthand typists. The Ward System is all based on voluntary work and I don't think the public purse would be hit too hard if it paid for the services of such assistance to the Councillors in this very important work they are doing for the people and for the Government who seem to take it all for granted. I put in an urgent request for the Standing Committee of the Whole Council to consider improvements to the Ward System at its next meeting.
Mr. Chairman, this Council has proved itself to undertake capably and sensibly all the duties allocated to it. This Council is made up of civic-minded, sensible citizens, of this Colony and it has advocated a form of enlargement of its scope, which was instigated by a speech made by the Governor in the Annual Budget Debate in March 1966, in which he drew attention to the fact that there had been a clamouring for and was probably a need for some form of constitutional reform at local government level. I think every member here has advocated some extension of the scope of the Urban Council and extension of the representation of our citizens, for years. There has been energetic raising of questions and motions for the benefit of the people and also, although it has often been blind to the fact, for the benefit of Government too, on those matters with which this Council is allowed to concern itself. But what about the matters with which we have not been allowed to concern ourselves? Education, Medical, Labour, Social Reforms, Traffic and Transport Reforms and improvements? We have surreptitiously tried to bring in these matters from time to time, but often had them thrown out as being out of order, because if we do not bring them up nobody and no other Council does. These essential departments are allowed to go on as they please with no one to question them, to spur them on to better, quicker and more efficient policies and actions. If these matters cannot be brought within the sphere and scope of this Urban Council, as they are in the City Council of every other large city in the world, then at least let them be brought up in the Council which should under our present constitutional set-up deal with them. Since over the years, no one has asked about these matters then let there at least be a modicum of elected members in the Legislative Council who will without doubt raise such questions.
Mr. Chairman, at a recent Urban Council Dinner Party, which was a luxurious, happy and enjoyable occasion for us all, the finest toast of the evening was that drunk to the four million people of Hong Kong whose loyalty, energy, hard-work, skill and patience have made Hong Kong the great and thriving international city that it is today. But what about these four million people, have they all had a fair share of the reward that their untiring labour deserves? When I talk to "the man in the street" in the course of my professional work and my Urban Council work, I have to come to the appalling answer—No, he has not and is not getting anything like what he deserves. I find myself asking the same questions over and over again. When is the man in the street going to have a decent basic minimum wage to bring home each week or each month? When is he going to have properly calculated overtime and proper pay for his overtime? When are his hours of work going to be 8 hours per day, 6 days per week in all shops, offices and factories registered and non-registered but tolerated? When is he going to have two weeks holidays with pay every year, not just scattered public holidays throughout the year, which are useless for his recreation, and useless particularly for his health, and a miserable few days at Chinese New Year when he has to spend an exhausting time visiting all his relatives to maintain tradition and family relationships, travelling in
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