CO537-1651 — Page 154

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In the urban areas the houses generally consist of

three or four storeys, of which the ground floor is

usually let to a shop-keeper who, with his assistants,

live in and at the back of the shop.

The upper storeys are single rooms running the

length and width of the house and each of these is usually

let off to a separate principal tenant who sub-divides

his floor by means of partitions into four or five cubicles,

all having a common kitchen. The principal tenant of the

floor keeps one cubicle for himself and sub-lets the

other cubicles and even sub-lets bed-spaces on the landings.

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The ordinary working man occupies with his family a

cubicle or bed-space of this sort his "holding" probably

amounts to about one-fortieth of the floor space of the

house.

Many workers of the carrying-coolie class, of whom

there are thousands, live in coolie lodging houses or in

fine weather make their homes on the pavements under

verandahs.

This state of affairs, coupled with the fundamentally

transient nature of the population due to the contiguity

of China, to which reference has been made in paragraph 5

of this memorandum, and with the absence (and probable

impracticability) of any system of individual registration

similar to National Registration in the United Kingdom,

operates to make it practically impossible to devise any

form of electoral registration for the peripatetic masses

of the people which would not open the door to personation

on an extensive scale.

It is, therefore, regarded as essential to link

eligibility as an elector with a property ownership or

householder qualification, with the alternative of liability

for jury service or the statutory exemption therefrom. No

other satisfactory method of identifying the electors

presents itself.

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