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members consider that it is not fair to have an election for the Chairman, probably for the next 2 years, amongst some Members who may conceivably not be Members by the time he takes up the office whereas others who will be Members would be excluded from voting because they are not yet even identifiable. That applies to both Appointed and Elected Members. They think therefore that if there is any election for Chairman, it should be at the earliest opportunity on or after 1st April next year.
But this is perhaps a minor matter to the terrific body of legislation, necessary by-laws and necessary amendments to Standing Orders that my Committee is at present getting through. We are so much in agreement on essential matters, that the matters of disagreement sink into the background, as it should be, with a Committee composed of people who so genuinely want to see the new Urban Council "make good".
We have, almost incidentally, had to approve the 1st independent budget for next year. We are doing this on the basis of the Urban Services Department's financial position for the current year plus certain important extras. The capital position and capital grant by Government, new Urban Council is also under constant consideration and I hope we will resolve satisfactorily in the near future.
Finally I would like to say a few words on Hawking. I have always been on one of the Hawkers Select Committees and was for many years the Chairman. I have my doubts about the new and so-called tougher policy toward hawkers. Members, sitting back in their armchairs, saying with some truth why I can quite understand there are hawkers licensed and unlicensed on our streets when there is a notorious shortage of labour in some industries, and other forms of jobs in Hong Kong. But I question whether this is a reality in practice. First of all, only young men and women can in fact obtain jobs, middle-aged men and women, and certainly elderly people, have been on the books of the Labour Department's Local Employment Service for months if not years and also we have not got enough people on the ground to enforce our by-laws which we have newly made. They can be enforced but they are not capable of so being with the manpower available.
Then again, it is all very well to say in armchairs, let the hawker population be assembled in off-street hawker bazaars. But there cannot be found enough off-street hawker bazaars, in places where the hawkers will obtain business. For instance at Kwun Tong, there are many streets of factories, but the off-street hawker bazaar is at the end of Kwun Tong. In consequence, there are an enormous amount of unlicensed hawkers in the side lanes off the streets filled with factories where the workers can quickly and easily go to, and neither
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the police nor the U.S.D. staff have sufficient men to control these unlicensed hawkers except for a few days, occasionally and for a pre-designed operation. A solution to this problem must be found, but a solution that closes its eyes to the lack of men on the ground is no solution at all.
Although my speech was supposed to be ended at this stage, I would be lacking moral courage if I did not say how horrified I am at the announcement yesterday afternoon in the Legislative Council of compulsory punishments. We have already a compulsory punishment of hanging for murder which we as apparently civilized beings should discharge from our statute book, but now indeed apparently we are to have compulsory punishment of imprisonment for various offences and even compulsory corporal punishment. I say that this is an insult on the judiciary and entirely and utterly ineffective in reducing crimes. As the Governor himself said in the Legislative Council a few weeks ago, the way and in my opinion, the only way to reduce crimes is to make detection inevitable. A criminal who has a very good chance of not being caught will commit crimes even though if he is caught the penalty is death. On the other hand, if the situation in Hong Kong is such that he will inevitably be caught, then he will not commit crimes even if the penalty is light. The public in Hong Kong value their face very much and in Hong Kong as indeed in all the world, the detection and bringing up to court is such a loss of face in itself that the actual punishment is secondary. If we consider the world statistics from countries that have abolished the punishment of death, one will find that the number of murders temporarily goes up and then very soon comes down to the same or less than the earlier average per head of the population. I cannot too strongly deprecate the interference with the judges and magistrates' discretion, a discretion so honestly and so carefully exercised in almost every case that this proposed legislation suggested by the Attorney General will involve and I say to the Government as was inferred by His Excellency himself "Do not look to the end result, strengthen the beginning, see that criminals get caught then we will have very little crime." To the public I say report crimes, it is no use saying as I have often heard the number of crimes reported to the police is a fraction of the number of crimes. I suggest that a campaign should be mounted to stress to the public the importance of reporting all crimes, especially crimes of violence, just as this Anti-Litter Campaign that has been mounted so successfully. Don't please, either the public or the gentlemen in the Government sit back in the armchairs and say increase the penalty by means of compulsory punishment provisions. That does not work and will not work and will even destroy eventually the independence of the judiciary. (Applause).
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