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much larger pitches without paying either licence or pitch fee is probably as great as, if not greater than, the number of licensed hawkers. It seems therefore purely arbitrary to charge higher pitch fees, without giving protection to the trade of these licensed hawkers and at the same time to allow others to operate in same streets free of charge without licences and without even giving them the opportunity to become legalized and to pay their share of pitch and licence fees. I shall therefore abstain from voting.
MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN (in English):-Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the motion, but in doing so I do hope that steps will be taken as soon as possible to increase the number of staff on the ground so as to give adequate protection to licensed newspaper hawkers.
DR. DENNY M. H. HUANG (in Cantonese): -Mr. Chairman, I feel that what Mr. Hu has suggested is correct but, as Mrs. ELLIOTT said, there are a lot of unlicensed hawkers. Before the situation is solved I have to abstain from voting.
DR. HU (in English):-Mr. Chairman, the increase is $30 per year. It is less than $3 per month, and it is in my view very negligible. The point raised by Mrs. ELLIOTT of course deserves our consideration because, on the one hand, Mrs. ELLIOTT has always been against mandatory confiscation of hawker goods. On the other hand, she now says that she cannot support this increase. If the Council carries out its policy to the extreme without any flexibility, then the livelihood of those hawkers, which Mrs. ELLIOTT terms as "illegal", will be in danger. The Council has always applied its policy with a sense of humanity and flexibility. I can assure Mrs. ELLIOTT, when circumstances permit, the Council will try to arrest those illegal hawkers and confiscate their goods, but for the moment we can only carry out our policy within a reasonable limit.
MRS. ELLIOTT (in English):-Mr. Chairman, only a point of clarification. I would like to clarify that I didn't suggest that we should confiscate their goods. I suggested that we should license them.
DR. HU (in English): -The licensing policy is not so simple that we give a licence. Supposing we license all hawkers tomorrow, there would be about 30,000 to 40,000 people lining up, and our streets will be crowded with hawkers. We, the Hawkers Select Committee, are responsible for hawker matters and we cannot do things irresponsibly. That is the dilemma in the whole question, and we will certainly try to carry out our hawker policy as far as we can.
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The question was put.
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The motion was carried with 18 votes for and 3 abstentions. (The Chairman did not vote.)
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Before I adjourn Council, I would like to wish all Members and their families a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year.
ADJOURNMENT - 4.35 P.M.
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Council stands adjourned until Tuesday, 8th March, 1977 at 4.00 p.m.
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