CO129-443 - Governor Sir May - 1917 [7-9] — Page 398

387

Magistrate is paying a rent of 1,920 for a house which in 1914 was assessed at $1,620.

8.

If the Chinese, who are now seeking houses at the Peak, are allowed to settle there, they will no doubt set a fashion which will result in the purchase by wealthy Chinese of Peak houses at fancy prices far beyond the European purse; and the Europeans thereby displaced will be driven to the less desirable and less healthy parts of the Colony which the Chinese are not yet occupying.

9.

The importance of the Peak to the

European on the ground of health is fully dealt with in my

19982 Despatch No. 189 of the 4th. May, 1904, and in the petition

which accompanied it; though this point was not perhaps sufficiently emphasized as regards children. There are many more children now at the Peak than there were in 1904, and European parents are bitterly opposed to any contact between their children and Chinese children; I may refer regarding So this to my Confidential Despatch of the 23rd. August, 1916, 747015

on the subject of the Peak School. Chinese residents at the Peak will have with them their wives and concubines with

numerous progeny, who must be thrown into daily contact with the European children in the children's playground and the few other shady spots to which the European children are now taken by their nurses and amahs. There is also the

vital question of health to be considered. Chinese families if resident in the Peak District would have much more

frequent and closer communication with the Chinese portion of Victoria than do Europeans and the chance of the carriage

and dissemination of communicable disease would be much

increased.

10.

I wish to emphasize the point that,

at the time when the Peak Reservation Ordinance was passed,

the intention of the Government was quite clear and was

fully