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unfortunate that such a potentially good report, one on which members had spent so many many hours of their time, should have been launched with this type of mistake. It demonstrates the need, not only over hawkers, but generally, for a far greater get together with the District Boards, particularly matters where the District Boards are obviously affected, but where the statutory powers of control are vested in our Council. I must urge on this Council the need for a very much more enlightened policy of liaison and cooperation with the District Boards, than has been the case so far. Why not for instance, have a few District Board Members coopted permanently onto our District Administration Select Committee, why not have District Board Members in on our discussions when it involves district matters in general, particular District Board, when we are dealing with one district project.
or a
I stress, I am not only referring to Markets and Street Traders Select Committee. I am referring also to Capital Works, to Entertainments, Parks and Playgrounds, in fact in almost every Select Committee we often deal with matters of interest at least to one of the urban District Boards. Let us take the initiative and cooperate with the District Boards, so as to make local government a compact body of public administration and opinion, rather than give the impression that we are almost dictating to the District Boards.
With these words, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to support the Motion.
MRS. E. TU (in English):—Mr. Chairman, this has been an eventful year as far as hawkers are concerned. For one thing, we have pressed on, not always as fast as we would have liked, with the consultative paper, and are now waiting for public comment before making final decisions on the proposed policy changes. We are not offering a perfect solution, but we believe that we can achieve great improvements. Another concern has been the increasing number of pedestrian and hawker accidents, and pressure on General Duties Teams, many of whom also have suffered injury. This fact only pinpoints the need to introduce new measures for dealing with the large number of unlicensed hawkers, and the urgency of tackling the triad problem.
The Government, and to some extent the Police, have at last admitted that there is a triad problem. Having made this admission, they now have the responsibility to deal with it. We have been promised stepped-up action. But I believe that I am voicing the fears of many who are familiar with the situation when I say it is essential to get hold of the culprits in the upper echelons of triad syndicates, and not youngsters who have been pressured into membership and have become the scapegoats of the syndicates. We need to deal with the big organisers, some of whom can be found in government and police circles. To punish only the small fry would harden them into criminals and aggravate rather than solve the triad problem.
I am also concerned about our money-orientated education in Hong Kong. Whatever is taught in school will have little effect upon young people if they are bombarded every day by unscrupulous money-grabbers with the temptation to read pornography, to experiment with vice, and to hope for an easy living through big gambling wins.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Since the Government is slow, or even reluctant to amend the law against vice-mongers, I hope we can get through to our young people, in spite of all pressures to the contrary, that 'the love of money is the root of all evil'. I hope our young people will not only pay lip-service to the high morals of their Chinese culture and philosophy, but that they will morally rebel against the false values being fed to them by the bad example of the less savoury elements of this capitalist society. We are desperately in need of dedicated teachers who have themselves been trained in civic knowledge and responsibility and are able to inspire their students with their moral and civic duty.
And while on the subject of education, may I repeat that one of the causes of delinquency in schools is the compulsory use of English resulting from the over-evaluation of the English School Certificate compared with the Chinese Certificate. Another child-destroying factor is the Form 3 examination. Educationalists know that these two factors are demoralizing our average or below-average students, but the system still continues, and we are already reaping a harvest of school dropouts and creating delinquency problems for the future. The promises made for changes in the system should be speeded up, before more damage results to our younger generation.
Concerning the Green Paper on Housing Subsidy to Tenants of Public Housing, I have always been an advocate of preventing the well-off people from entering public housing in the first place. The system encourages people to slip into a hut just before a survey so as to get public housing without any income check. This is providing a loophole for better-off cheats, triads, and friends of government servants, who are in a position to tip them off about pending clearances. Unless this loophole is plugged, I can see no sense in penalizing all tenants of ten years' residence by charging them double rent. The income limit set for this rent increase exercise is not the income of a well-off tenant, but the wage of an experienced clerk, or a teacher on the lower rung of the salary scale: these are people who could not afford to rent a flat in the private sector and by no means qualified to be called 'well-off'. Government propaganda tells the public that the rents they propose to double are very low. That is a half-truth. Some rents in the old mark estates are indeed low, but at Oi Man and other estates built after 1972 rents are going to be too high when doubled. Even a small room in Oi Man Estate is now rented at nearly $600, and to double that would cause hardship to tenants and reduce their standard of living considerably. If the Government is really concerned about taxpayers having to subsidise rents, they should look first at their own upper-grade civil servants' rental subsidies, which are disgracefully extravagant and a misuse of public money. The Government should re-define the meaning of 'well-off' and above all introduce an income test on all who enter public housing.
Still on public housing I think enough has been said, and will probably still be said in this debate, about the scandal of substandard materials used in public
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