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of experts for investigation, planning, etc. Since then millions of dollars have been spent and a second plan was updated over four years ago. Our Financial Secretary, as chairman of the steering committee, obviously lacked the required determination and decision and this has recently resulted in a deadlock with the Japanese consortium. It seems to me totally unimaginable that such a long period should have passed without even having concluded the contract.
(v) For several years, not only this Council but also the Housing Authority and the Public Works Department and perhaps other Departments as well based their planning on the presumption that the underground railway would soon be built, and a number of tenement buildings were pulled down, partly or fully for this purpose. Should the rapid transit system finally flop, the loss to the public would be incalculable.
In any democratic society a financial secretary who acted as ours has done would have been dismissed from his post long ago. Only our colonial set-up has enabled him to hold on for so long. In view of the fact that the accumulated ill effects of his mistakes coupled with worldwide inflation have caused very great hardship to Hong Kong people, I demand, as a citizen, that Mr. HADDON-CAVE should now retire to make way for a more capable man to steer us through this unprecedentedly difficult time.
Mr. Chairman, with these remarks I second the motion.
MR. B. A. BERNACCHI (In English):--Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order. The Reform Club generally, Mr. Henry Hu and myself, in particular, on the Urban Council were years earlier than Dr. HUANG in advocating the equal use of English and Chinese in Hong Kong. Further, I must dissociate myself from the personal attack on the Financial Secretary that I have just heard.
DR. DENNY M. H. HUANG (in Cantonese): --Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether it is because my Chinese is bad or English is poor. But in my text printed in both English and Chinese, I said that I am one of the leaders in this advocate. I am not the first, I am one of them. It is clearly printed in both the English and the Chinese texts.
As for the Financial Secretary, what I've said are entirely my personal opinions and I have no request from Mr. BERNACCHI to approve what I said.
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MR. PETER P. F. CHAN (in English):--Mr. Chairman, On the sixth of this month, an article was published by the Hong Kong Standard on the "cost of dying" which I presume should normally include the cost of disposal of the dead and the cost of the funeral. The Hong Kong Standard in that article however only confined to the cost of burials.
The subject on the cost of dying has exercised the minds of every member of the Urban Council, and probably unknown to the general public, I would like to state that at this moment, the services available by the Council in this aspect have been in a much better shape than ever before, I would also like to take this opportunity to report on some of our achievements to explain some of our policies and to suggest some plans for the future.
Free burial services at the expense of the Council are now a routine service to the public and for those who accept cremation of the dead, the Council's Crematoria now provide clean, efficient and dignified means of disposal of human remains. We are however not satisfied with our present facilities and the planning of additional crematorium facilities is under way to provide for contingencies and to cope with future increased needs. The niches in extremely good environment in our crematoria provide permanent, restful and inexpensive storage of the ashes of cremated bodies and all of them are easily accessible. This form of permanent storage of ashes is now becoming very popular and we see the need in asking Government for further extension of our Cape Collinson Crematorium for building additional niches and for earlier reprovisioning of our Diamond Hill Crematorium.
In these years it has been the policy of the Urban Council to promote cremation and in this regard the results have been very encouraging and cremation is now readily and widely acceptable to the public. On the other hand, however, we are also deeply concerned with the local creed and custom in providing burial for the dead, but in doing so, we are facing of course the problem of obtaining land which is becoming more precious and scarce. The policy of Government and of the Urban Council is to try to strike a pleasant balance between the observance for the local creed and custom in permanent burials and the economic use of land. Our way to do this is to promote cremation and to limit the provision of burial land to private cemeteries, and where land is made available it will be restricted at least partly as exhumable lots. The premium payable (if the descendant is willing to pay) will be used to maintain the cemeteries and to meet repair costs on damages caused by natural disasters and if the descendants do not wish to renew then at no further cost the exhumed remains will be put