HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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a revenue which will give a reasonable rate of interest on the capital expended.
In the course of your speech, Sir, at the last meeting of this Council you said:
"The aim of the Government is to give every house con- nected with the waterworks, both on Hong Kong Island and the mainland, a full supply of filtered water throughout the year."
We venture, however, to express grave doubts whether, unless the Government very speedily indeed gets on with the construction of the big dam at Shing Mun, it will be reasonably practicable for the Government for some years to come to discard the rider-main system.
We would, therefore, most strongly urge the Government to press on with the plans for the construction of the big dam in the Shing Mun gorge and with the building of the dam itself.
We do not know whether the present position of uncertainty is due to divided opinion within the Government or not, but what we do suggest is that your Excellency might appoint an advisory Com- mittee from the residents of the Colony with technical knowledge, who, we feel certain, will be able to assist in arriving at definite recommendations and whose advice will, we believe, be of great assistance to the Government.
Next we turn to the question of malaria. We note with pleasure the advent to this Colony of the Honourable Dr. Wellington, one of the experts on this subject, who, we understand, has been working on a comprehensive scheme for the improvement of the Public Health of the Colony, and whose recommendations we hope to see shortly laid upon the table of this Council.
In the meantime we heartily approve of the new staff to assist him in his labours which is proposed in the Estimates for 1930, for hitherto Dr. Wellington has been rather in the position of a General without an army.
There can be no doubt that it is necessary to wage war upon the malaria-bearing kinds of mosquito, especially at Repulse Bay, Stanley and Taipo and in the Kowloon foothills.
In this connexion the following quotation from the Report, already referred to, of the Right Honourable Mr. Ormsby Gore seems worth attention:
"The importance of adequate training in hygiene and preventive medicine can hardly be overstated. Every practi- tioner in a tropical climate should be a sanitarian. The value of measures for the protection of the health of the individual
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