5.
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entirely, enabled them to live at the Club at no further
expense to themselves. The houses remained unoccupied,
2
and that is typical of what frequently happens in Hong Kong. In
any business concern a person who lives in a firm's house.
whether his wife is with him or not, would have to live in
that house whether he liked it or not and I fail to see why
a Government servant should be any different.
The disaster that almost overtook the Colony last
year through the failure of the Government to provide an
adequate water supply for the Colony need not be gone into in
detail because the water question is so well known to you. I would however say that the expense the Colony was put to in
transporting water from Shanghai and other places (fortunately such a state of affairs did not last long) was due entirely to
the Government. The Shing-mun scheme would have been put
into effect long ago had it not been for the extraordinarily
shortsighted view they took. They actually stopped the progress
of work because in their opinion the new territory would fall
into Chinese hands long before the island itself reverted to
China, and they did not see, therefore, why the capital
outlay involved in these works should be borne by the
Hong Kong Government!
When the Governor went on leave the
position became so acute that the unofficial members of the
Council practically submitted an ultimatum to the Officer
Administering the Government that if he did not take action
at once and forthwith begin to construct a pipe line across the
harbour, they would resign.
Much more could be written destructively on the
P.W.D.; but what has been said already is probably enough to
convince most people how unsatisfactory this department is.
Police.
With regard to this Department the present Captain Superintendent as well as his assistant is efficient but
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