CO129-267 - Governor Sir Robinson - 1895 [4-6] — Page 599

Enclosure 2.

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The Hongkong Telegraph

HONGKONG, FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1895.

THE FUTURE OF TAL-PING-SHAN.

THE estimates and plan of the Director of Public Works for the reconstruction of Tai-ping-shan are undoubtedly the best that could be devised. Mr. BELILIOS* proposals and suggestions are wholly inadequate, and we are not astonished that the Public Works Committee and the Council have accepted Mr. Cooper's scheme and disregarded the Honorable Member's protest. Tal-ping-shan stood absolutely in need of destruction. Nothing short of demolition would suffice

to enable that to be done in the district which it is absolutely essential should be done if the district is to be put in a sanitary condition. The ground plan was seriously defective as well as the erections and buildings and improvements in the latter would be of little avail, even If possible, until the entire re-arrange- ment of the streets and lanes has been effected. As the Permanent Committee pointed out very forcibly, the houses were damp and badly lighted and worse ventilated because of the way the ground had been originally laid out, and of the lines along which the streets had been carried. To correct these inherent defects the houses must all go, and the whole area be laid out on a fresh and more scientific plan. The proposal to destroy by fire was wholly unconnected with any plan for reconstruction. It was the outcome of the belief entertained by the members of the Committee, supported by the bulk of medical opinion, that the soil under the houses and round the drains, and the brick and wood work of the houses,

were so saturated with plague germs that fire appeared to be the only practical remedy. The lapse of time and the experience of the past few months seems to have justified the conclusions of those who deemed the ordeal by Pre too severe, but, because there is now no need to destroy by fire the necessity for destruc- tion has not been in the least degree weakened. The houses must be entirely pulled down and wiped out of existence because without that being done no adequate reconstruction can be accom- plished,

we

Mr. COOPER is quite right to refuse bis consent to any half measures, and the reasons he gives in support of his refusal are unquestionably sound. It is not a question that can be disposed of solely as & question of dollars and cents. The loss to the Colony of half a million of dollars is nothing if Mr. COOPER will give us a well laid out, well drained, well ventilated and thoroughly sanitary quarter in exchange. But we do not think that there need be such a great loss. It seems to us, from the latest Information can obtain, that the Director of Public Works is making too liberal an allowance | for roads and streets and leaving too little for building purposes. We should like to see his plans reconsidered on this point. Perhaps he will look into the matter himself again before work is commenced and the scheme becomes irrevocable. We should have been glad to see a proposal for blocks of buildings of the latest and most improved design for Chinese of the working classes to be constructed by the Government and sold after erection. It seems to us there would be on opening here for another profit to the Government and for an effective lesson In sanitary construction to the landowners of the Colony. May we ask consideration for this suggestion?

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