Page 92 of 195
152
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
considerable amount of bad feeling, particularly amongst the District Board members and even between various District Boards, which may interfere with their function of giving the advice to the Government on all matters relating to their Districts. There has been some criticism directed to these reforms also by the Chinese Government, and I personally do not think that the number of non-Government appointed members should be increased for the next few years, i.e. in remaining years of the 1980s. Nevertheless, I seriously recommend the committee to be appointed next year to make recommendations on further reforms, that they consider the direct election of these twelve members, constituency basis, rather than from a small electoral college.
On the same level as our own Council, there has been creating the new Regional Council with responsibilities for most of the New Territories and they are having their first elections early in March of this year, at the same time as this Council is having its. I was one of the advocates of a larger combined council with members from the New Territories, rather than two Councils, but now I hope all of us on the Urban Council are prepared to work with this new Council to make a success of local government in Hong Kong.
Finally, on the first part of my speech, I would mention the Basic Law. I welcome the fact that a party of Chinese lawyers together with Mr. Lu Ping is come to Hong Kong for a month, in effect to study what makes Hong Kong stable and prosperous. I hope, of course, this includes the separation of the executive from the judiciary, of which we in Hong Kong are rightly proud, for the purpose of putting that principle to the Drafting Committee, who are responsible for the drafting of the Basic Law. I urge everyone to do their part. However, let us not be smug. I want the Basic Law, if possible, to contain features preserving all that is good in both cultures, Hong Kong and the great nation of China, to which we will become part in under twelve years' time. It is in this way that the peace, prosperity, and stability of Hong Kong can best be preserved.
The second part of my speech today is devoted to Hawker Review Report. Almost ever since first coming onto the Urban Council in 1952, I have been on the Hawkers Select Committee, and from time to time Chairman of this Select Committee. Also, for a total of many years, but from time to time, I have also been on the Markets Select Committee and now I am a member of the combined Markets and Street Traders Select Committee. Although I was and am not on Mrs. Elsie ELLIOTT'S, now Mrs. Elsie Tu's, Hawker Review Sub-Committee, I was always very interested in their considerations. It is now time to congratulate them on producing a more thorough report than in my experience has been done at last since the War.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 92 of 195
153
The hawker so-called problem has been with us since the Sanitary Committee was first formed over 100 years ago, and there are some difficulties which will go on well into the next century. The Urban Council has itself wandered from one extreme to another like a pendulum. In 1952, hawker licences were controlled but fairly easy to obtain. Preference, however, was given to widows of persons who had died in the defence of Hong Kong, or in Japanese Prisoner Camps. The Commissioner of Police at that time was a member not only of the Urban Council but also of the Hawker Select Committee and, strangely enough, licences were awarded also to people who had helped the police in solving crimes. Indeed, generally, licences were a sort of award, especially cooked food licences, issued to persons who had helped Hong Kong in some way, but who had fallen on bad times, however, without regard to whether they were capable of running such a stall. Remember, in those times, there was no Social Welfare Department, and certainly no Government financial assistance. Even Education was considered to be an expensive luxury.
However, with the coming of refugees from China, too many people were applying for hawker licences, so the Council decided to issue no more licences! This was itself later completely reversed by a Motion by Y. K. KAN, now Sir Y. K. KAN, passed by the Council, which made pedlar licences available to anyone who wished to apply. In course of time, almost inevitably, the pendulum again swung in the other direction, and there was once more no issue of new licences. The Hawker Select Committee, spear-headed by Dr. Henry Hu, Mrs. Elsie ELLIOTT, and myself, then passed a provision which would have allowed a certain number of licences to be issued per year on welfare grounds. However, this was rejected by the Council as a whole, and for a while, most of us, old timers in hawker affairs, resigned en bloc from the Hawker Select Committee in protest. However, we are more or less all back on it now, and I hope the pendulum has at last come to rest, half-way between the extremes, if the present proposals are acceptable to us all, as a very carefully worked out compromise.
I appreciate that this is early days. The District Boards would have to comment, and even if they are favourable, still there will have to be an adoption by the Whole Council. I sincerely hope that at this stage, the Report will not be given the same fate as had another policy by the older Hawker Select Committee, a few years ago! However, the launching of this new report demonstrated how careful we must be to make our intention clear to the District Boards right from the beginning.
The Review Sub-Committee decided that it would only be polite to the other Urban Councillors and the Chairman of Urban District Boards, to invite them along to give them a brief resume of the Report and present them with a copy thereof, before it was released to the Press. Indeed, this Report in Chinese language had only come off the printing press before! Nevertheless, apparently, the District Board Chairmen thought that the Urban Council was being rude in not letting them have copies in advance of the meeting. They thought they would be asked questions about the Report by the press immediately after the meeting, and maybe their answers would be held against them later, when they came to discuss it, in their respective District Boards. So they did not come!
In other words, a complete lack of liaison, for which the Urban Council must take the majority of the blame, since we have a special Select Committee designed to ensure liaison with the District Boards. It was at least most...
Page 92 of 195
Page 92 of 19: