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Small shopkeepers in huts may be quite successful in running their small grocery shops in the squatter areas, but they may find running a large sophisticated business concern in a new estate quite a different thing altogether. This may also lead to subletting in one form or the other as experience has taught us. There may even be the chance of selling out the tendering rights as they may become quite valuable, which would not be in the best interest of the estate population at large.
The open tender system should aim for better and higher standard of management, not at gaining revenue as such. The government should use the premium money obtained from tender for improving the recreation and other facilities in the estates concerned.
More and better facilities will benefit all tenants in the estates including the ex-shopkeepers. In trying not to allow the creation of a privileged class among the under-privileged, believing that the majority interest should always be more important than the special interest of the minority, I regret to say that it would be against my conscience to support this well-intended motion as it stands.
After brooding over the question for a number of days, I will be trying to escape from my duty if I abstain in such an important motion, it is more so after taking into consideration my being the Chairman of the Resettlement Select Committee which has given this case a very considerable amount of consideration which must ensure good and effective Resettlement Estates management.
With long hesitation, I have resolved to oppose the motion.
MR. HENRY HU:-Mr. Chairman, may I say a few words? I came to this Council with an open mind. Having listened carefully to the speeches of Mr. BERNACCHI and Mrs. ELLIOTT and also of Mr. Peter C. K. CHAN, I should think that Mr. BERNACCHI, in moving this motion, has indeed given very long and careful consideration to the whole matter, and I came to the conclusion that this is a good motion, full of common sense and logic. I am therefore pleased, Mr. Chairman, to render my full support to this motion as it is certainly for the common interest of the whole community that this question should be recon-sidered, because as Mr. BERNACCHI has said, we really have not achieved the initial aim which we, in the very beginning, have instituted by paying cash to the shop owners in those areas which have to be reclaimed. Mr. Chairman, with these few words I support the motion.
MR. BERNACCHI:--My Friend, Mrs. ELLIOTT, has made a very good point when she says that shopkeepers will require domestic accommodation, and I am interested to notice that, when Mr. CHAN made his speech he said somewhere "that of course shopkeepers will require domestic accommodation". Well, is it proposed, because it is not in the policy at present? Is it proposed that because an outside shop-keeper is successful in the tender, then that will give him authority or a right to have domestic accommodation? If so, it is completely and utterly against the whole policy of resettlement. As in my submission, this proposition that tenders for new shops should be open to the public is also against all the principles of resettlement.
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MR. PETER C. K. CHAN:-Mr. Chairman, may I rise on a point of personal clarification. When I said, "of course we all know the shopkeeper will require domestic resettlement", what I meant was that those people whose shops have been cleared, besides getting compensation, they also get domestic resettlement.
MR. BERNACCHI:-So that with Mr. CHAN's clarification, the point made by Mrs. ELLIOTT has not been answered at all, namely that, she says even the Housing Authority has found that shopkeepers require domestic accommodation, and, indeed, get it. If resettlement shops are open to public tender then, in effect, it will mean that either there will be illegal sub-letting of domestic rooms or, as she says, illegal occupation of the shop itself. She also elaborated on my original theme of middle-aged shopkeepers, and indeed when Mr. CHAN says "I am all in favour of increasing the rate of compensation", what effect has that? Does the Governor in Council listen to Mr. CHAN? Does Mr. CHAN is in favour of increasing the compensation, will they increase it to 40 or 50 thousand? Mr. CHAN, in my submission, is merely giving words without meaning. He says "I am all in favour of increasing the compensation" as if Mr. CHAN has only to wave a magic wand and the compensation will be increased, and Mr. CHAN says "the compensation is already $6,000 to $20,000". Yes, I agree it is in theory, but very, very few shopkeepers receive anything like $20,000. Now Mrs. ELLIOTT says that she would not dare to suggest public assistance. Well, I have dared to suggest public assistance in my ward in some cases, and I met with the answer that Mrs. ELLIOTT gave in her speech "we do not want charity thrown in our faces". That is precisely the answer I met with.
Now, Mr. CHAN says that we are entrusted with the duties of managing Resettlement Estates. That is Mrs. ELLIOTT's point. She says, and I agree with her, that the amount of trouble that open tender will bring on resettlement policy as a whole, resettlement management as a whole, is shocking. Then he says "but I have come across many shopkeepers that do not regard themselves as tenants, sometimes they regard themselves as landlords". Well, as regards this, the principal tenant problem, this happens everywhere, not confined to Resettlement Estates and certainly not confined, or in any way rectified, by a system of open tender. I quite agree with the proposition that they should be put on a proper lease basis. Well, so what, in this motion there is
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