CO129-313 - Governor Sir Blake - 1902 [10-12] — Page 579

574

Victoria should be discontinued, was subsequently employed

}

to draw up a Petition to the Secretary of State for the

Colonies from a number of Chinese who would be affected

by the Law against the Law which I had myself advised, and

that I voted against the Bill on the third reading, is

inaccurate and misleading; because the Bill was first

introduced without my knowledge and advice, and my

interviews with the Honourables the Colonial Secretary and

the Director of Public Works on that Bill did not take

place until some time after its first reading in Council. Although a supporter of the principle of the Bill on the ground that waste of water should be prevented in chinese tenement houses, I was not in favour of a system

of the universal metering of such houses, as I considered that such a system would be impractical and expensive. The reasons for my objections were given by me in one of my interviews with the two above mentioned gentlemen and in the presence of my colleague the Honourable Wei A Yuk, the details of which I need not here enter into.

In another interview, in which Mr. Wei A Yuk was also present, I pointed out to the Honourables the Colonial Secretary and the Director of Public Works that the Chinese inhabitants in this Colony would not avail themselves of the advantage or see the doubtful benefit of the meter system, and that the Government would be incurring a large expenditure in providing for meters which I felt the Chinese would ultimately reject. which the two Honourable gentlemen replied that it was exactly the object they wished to effect, namely that water should be ultimately and entirely cut off from all

Thereupon I asked them why Chinese tenement houses. should the Government seek to effect such an object in

Το

such a roundabout and expensive method and why they should not come boldly forward instead, with an enactment for the supply of water to Chinese tenement houses by

(a)