CO129-513-6 Hong Kong water supply- schemes for development and improvement 25-1-1929 - 2-8-1929 — Page 22

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6.

The principal Ordinance refers in various places to

the "quarter".

In practice this must mean the period

between two consecutive meter readings as provided by

regulation 7 on page 309 of the Regulations of Hêng Kẹng.

It is obvious that the meters throughout the Colony cannot

possibly be read on the same day, and the regulation in

question provides that for the purpose of calculating the

quarterly consumption in any particular tenement the

differences between two consecutive readings of the meter

is to be taken. It also provides that the reading may be

taken on any day not more than ten days before or after the

calendar date of the commencement of the quarter.

Accordingly, the meter reader's quarter for any particular

tenement may not coincide with the calendar quarter, and it

may be longer or shorter than the calendar quarter, but a

longer quarter is always balanced later on by a shorter

quarter because the last reading of any one quarter must be

taken as the first reading of the succeeding quarter.

Section 3 of this Ordinance inserts in the principal Ordinance

a section which expressly recognises what may be called the

meter reader's quarter. This same point recurs in section

13 (2) of this Ordinance.

7.

Section 4 of this Ordinance amends section 5 of the

principal Ordinance so as to make the ordinary undertaking

to pay for water apply to all water supplied by meter

This amendment was necessary even apart from any question

of the temporary abolition of the "free allowance", because

even at present there are cases in which there is no "free

allowance".

8.

Section 5 of this Brdinance amends the regulation

making section of the principal Ordinance in two ways.

In the first place it abolishes the former maximum price