M 24
Table X.
Coolie hire H.K. $ 0.50 $ 0.60 per day (casual)
$ 1.00 $ 1.20 $ 1.45
Lorry hire (2 tons lorry) $ 1.60 per hour casual $ 1.35
Sampan hire (2 ton) $ 2.00 per day $15.00
Junk hire (35 ton) "J $5.00 per hour.
Steam launch hire by tender
(wharf) (rickshaw) (stevedore)
126. An average working day is nine hours, but not infrequently this is increased to thirteen or fourteen hours by over-time. Wages vary with the occupation, women making electric batteries being paid as little as fifteen cents a day. Instances have come to light where women working in, for example, ginger cleaning factories received only ten cents for ten hours labour. Two mines are worked in the New Territories, only one of which has satisfactory accommodation for its labourers, although steps are being taken to rectify this deficiency at an early date. The bulk of Hong Kong labour is employed in factories and workshops, in transport, engineering, ship-building, fishing, market gardening and house-building.
(Y) Housing and Town Planning
127. The Building Ordinance, No. 18 of 1935, controls housing in the Colony. The poorer class Chinese live for the most part in houses with narrow frontages built back-to-back. These houses frequently have conservancy back-lanes six feet or more in width. The older type of house is usually a three storeyed building with a frontage of sixteen to twenty-five feet and a depth of thirty-five to forty feet. The ground floor is often used as a shop, while the rooms in the upper storeys are divided into three or more cubicles by partitions six to eight feet high. The kitchen is at the back of the house, and the one latrine which is on the ground floor serves the whole building. In some of the more modern tenement buildings each floor is provided with a latrine,
128. In some districts the lanes between tenement blocks are built over by "riding floors" and the covered-in area serves as a street in which hawkers ply their trade, and as a refuse dump for the adjacent blocks of buildings. It is scarcely necessary to point out that such buildings are worthy of condemnation from every point of view, and it is hoped that many of their shortcomings may be counteracted by legislation passed in 1935. This legislation will also demand a much higher standard for future buildings.
129. The houses of the poorer Chinese are grievously overcrowded, and this state of affairs has been steadily aggravated by the continuous inflow of refugees into Hong Kong. The conversion of a certain number of dwelling houses into factories to replace those destroyed in China by the war has also added to housing difficulties. A further factor affecting this state of affairs relates to the manner in which many unscrupulous landlords or their agents and principal tenants exploited the housing shortage consequent upon the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees.
130. Rents were raised to such an extent that real hardship and injustice made some form of rent control absolutely imperative. A Rents Commission was appointed by the Government which was seriously concerned with the distress and discontent, and although its findings did not help greatly to a solution of the problem, Government introduced the Prevention of Eviction Ordinance, No. 6 of 1938, which gave the right, inter alia, to aggrieved persons to appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where unconscionable terms were being demanded.
Page 25
M 24
Table X.
Coolie hire H.K. $ 0.50 $ 0.60 per day (casual)
$ 1.00
$ 1.20
$ 1.45
Lorry hire (2 tons lorry)
Sampan hire (2 ton) Junk hire (35 ton)
Steam launch hire
>>
""
(wharf)
(rickshaw)
(stevedore)
$ 1.60 per hour casual $ 1.35
25
$ 2.00 per day $15.00
"J
$5.00 per hour.
by tender
126. An average working day is nine hours, but not infrequently this is increased to thirteen or fourteen hours by over-time. Wages vary with the oc- cupation, women making electric batteries being paid as little as fifteen cents a day. Instances have come to light where women working in, for example, ginger cleaning factories received only ten cents for ten hours labour. Two mines are worked in the New Territories, only one of which has satisfactory accommodation for its labourers, although steps are being taken to rectify this deficiency at an early date. The bulk of Hong Kong labour is employed in factories and work- shops, in transport, engineering, ship-building, fishing, market gardening and house-building.
(Y) Housing and Town Planning
127.
The Building Ordinance, No. 18 of 1935, controls housing in the Colony. The poorer class Chinese live for the most part in houses with narrow frontages built back-to-back. These houses frequently have conservancy back- lanes six feet or more in width. The older type of house is usually a three storeyed building with a frontage of sixteen to twenty-five feet and a depth of thirty-five to forty feet. The ground floor is often used as a shop, while the rooms in the upper storeys are divided into three or more cubicles by partitions six to eight feet high. The kitchen is at the back of the house, and the one latrine which is on the ground floor serves the whole building. In some of the more modern tenement buildings each floor is provided with a latrine,
128. In some districts the lanes between tenement blocks are built over by "riding floors" and the covered-in area serves as a street in which hawkers ply their trade, and as a refuse dump for the adjacent blocks of buildings. It is scarcely necessary to point out that such buildings are worthy of condemnation from every point of view, and it is hoped that many of their shortcomings may be counteracted by legislation passed in 1935. This legislation will also demand a much higher standard for future buildings.
129. The houses of the poorer Chinese are grievously overcrowded, and this state of affairs has been steadily aggravated by the continuous inflow of refugees into Hong Kong. The conversion of a certain number of dwelling houses into factories to replace those destroyed in China by the war has also added to housing difficulties. A further factor affecting this state of affairs relates to the manner in which many unscrupulous landlords or their agents and principal tenants exploited the housing shortage consequent upon the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees.
130. Rents were raised to such an extent that real hardship and injustice made some form of rent control absolutely imperative. A Rents Commission was appointed by the Government which was seriously concerned with the distress and discontent, and although its findings did not help greatly to a solution of the problem, Government introduced the Prevention of Eviction Ordinance, No. 6 of 1938, which gave the right, inter alia, to aggrieved persons to appeal to the Supreme Court in cases where unconscionable terms were being demanded.
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