378
CE
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The Attorney-General further on, in addressing the Council, is reported to have said: "It is possible that in some instances the Sanitary Board may have gone, I do not know "that it has done so, a little beyond what they would have done if they had had more time. "But without emolument, in a time of great danger, the Sanitary Board, after being lothargic "for I do not know how long, suddenly awoke and rose to a sense of its duty and did some admirable work and closed all the houses which are in the schedules, and I shall ask you when the Bill comes before the Committee to say that, having done their best for the benefit "of the community in a time of great emergency, they should be prevented from being "attacked by the lawyers on every legal or technical point it is possible for lawyers to "take in regard to their conduct, and I shall have to point out to you the clauses which "will protect the Sanitary Board later on."
14
LA
46
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Subsequently, referring to overcrowding, the Attorney-General said: "If you had a man here who could inspect these houses and stop this state of matters it would be a different thing. But there is no such being in existence and as long as you give an opportunity of overcrowding by means of these mezzanine floors and cubicles, so long will you have overcrowding, &c.' With reference to these latter remarks your Memorialists would point out that it is not necessarily the landlords who put in the mezzanine floors and cubicles to which the Attorney-General referred. A landlord having once let his house has no right to be visiting and inspecting it at all hours of the day and night, and the only possible way of preventing the erection and maintenance of illegal floors and partitions is by appointing proper sanitary inspectors with statutory power to visit and inspect the various buildings from time to time, and the same remarks apply to the number of persons inhabiting a building. By the Health Ordinance of 1887 the Sanitary Board had power to make bye-laws on this subject and did so, but the bye-laws were not brought into force as a coolie strike was threatened, and the Government are now attempting to compel the owners of houses to carry into effect what the Government with all the executive power at its command found impossible. A landlord whose whole time may be occupied in mercantile or other pursuits, is certainly not in a position to personally check the number of persons allowed by the lessees to frequent houses belonging to him, nor hitherto has any such duty been attempted to be thrown upon him by law.
13. When the Bill was in Committee, the Attorney-General is reported to have said: "Section 3 applies to property the owners of which have refused to do anything, they say the Sanitary Board is holding our property and we will not do anything.'" Your Memorialists would point out that this does not fairly represent the position taken up by the landlords. What in effect they said was: We have built our houses in compliance "with the Public Health Ordinance and the Building Ordinance, you say that they have "been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and we ask therefore that they should be returned to us; we shall be amenable to the law, but the Permanent Committee of the Sanitury Board has no right whatever to alter the law, and should any alteration in our houses be required "that should be effected by Ordinance in a legal manner; the conditions landlords are asked to agree to are such that it would be utterly impossible to enforce them and we will not give any undertaking which the Permanent Committee has no right whatever to demand.” Some of your Memorialists, while refusing to sign the conditions suggested, offered, at their own expense, to do anything that the Permanent Committee might require in the of alterations or repairs or to allow the Permanent Committee to effect the alteratious and way repairs at the expense of the landlords; but their letters to the Chairman of the Permaneut Committee were disregarded and no reply whatever was vouchsafed to them.
14.-Your Memorialists would urge most respectfully but most strongly upon your Lordship that the acts of the Permanent Committee of the Sanitary Board, having been adopted and ratified by the Colonial Government, their acts may be considered as the acts of the Government and the latter should make compensation to those who have suffered by such acts. Whether or not any binding undertaking was given by the Government at the time the Taipingshan Resumption Ordinance was passed that the owners of closed houses outside the resumed area should be compensated for the losses they had incurred in consequence of their houses having been closed for the general good, it is quite clear that the unofficial members of Council were under that impression when they consented to the
5
Taipingshan Resumption Ordinance becoming law, and supposed at that time that both sets of landlords would be treated alike; and your Memorialists were certainly under this impression when the then Acting Attorney-General stated that the matter of compensation to owners of closed houses outside the Taipingshan District was under the consideration of the Government.
15.-Your Memorialists must again call attention to the incorrectness of the remarks of the Attorney-General when he said: "What the Permanent Committee did was this, where "a medical certificate was given that a house was unfit for habitation, it was closed until it was made fit. As soon as it was fit for habitation it was given back," and your Memorialists think it right to set out verbatim the printed notice that was served upon the owners of the closed houses, it was as follows:---
Permanent Committee,
Sanitary Board,
Hongkong
189
Your house No. Street been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected and the Permanent Committee are prepared to permit to be reoccupied on your undertaking in writing as follows :--
(a) Not to allow the ground floor to be occupied as living room until the floor--
been remade to a depth of 9 inches of material impermeable to gas or water. (b) Not to allow the basement to be used as living room.
(e) Not to allow a greater number of persons to occupy the house than in the proportion of one adult to every 21 square feet of floor space and 300 cubic feet of air space.
(d) Not to allow mezzanine floors except in strict accordance with the Building
Ordinance of 1889.
If you accept the above conditions please sign below and return this paper.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
For the Permanent Committee.
and as above stated the first time that the owners were notified that they could obtain possession of their houses without agreeing to these conditions was upon the 5th January, 1895.
16.-Your Memorialists are convinced that the steady progress of Hongkong, which from being a mere barren rock has now become one of the leading shipping ports in the Empire, is owing to a great extent to the belief of those residing there in the constitutional administration of the Colony, and to their belief that the Home Government would be certain to negative or disallow any Colonial Ordinance which either in letter or spirit was repugnant to parliamentary legislation in England, and they cannot believe that an Ordinance which would have the effect of confiscating the property of individual members of the community, without giving them full and fair compensation for the loss they suffer in consequence, would meet with your Lordship's approval and they would point out that the individual loss is not the only point to be considered. Should such a law as Ordinance No. 15 of 1894 be allowed to remain without modification, no investors in landed property in Hongkong could in the future feel any confidence in this form of security if liable to be deprived of it for an indefinite time in the event of au epidemic unfortunately visiting the Colony. The. knowledge that the owners of capital are liable to be treated in this way can only operate most prejudicially for all those interested in the growth of this rapidly expanding Colony, as it will necessarily doter capitalists from investing either as Owners or Mortgagees of leaseholds in Hongkong, and will cause those who have already invested to withdraw their The shock to confidence and good faith which money at the earliest possible moment.
the confiscation clause of this Ordinance must cause will inevitably tend to drive the investing public away and thus cause most serious detriment to the Colony.
ta
محمد
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