CO129-525-3 Estimates 1931 and other financial papers 16-1-1930 - 1-9-1932 — Page 292

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

3. Reduced charges for excess consumption.

4.

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Computation of the water allowance on the basis of 25 cents instead of 40 cents per unit of 1,000 gallons.

5. Persons who have direct control over the use of water to be required to pay for excess consumption.

6. Installation of one meter on each floor of every tenement house.

7. Government to compel landlords to instal meters within what are now the rider-main districts.

8.

Government to bear the cost of installing and connecting meters in the case of all unmetered houses in the rider-main districts, the meters themselves being paid for by the people in the form of rent as at present.

We have given these several matters our careful consideration, and have also discussed them with Your Excellency and with our European unofficial colleagues. We agree that it would be difficult for the Government to accede to the requests for cancelling the 2% water rate; for reducing the rent for meters and the charges for excess consumption of water; and for changing the basis for computing the water allowance, without having to find other sources of revenue to replace those which would be lost to the Government by these concessions.

The request that persons who have control over the use of water should be required to pay for excess consumption is, in our opinion, a matter that can best be settled between landlords and tenants.

The request that permission should be given for a separate meter for each floor, has been practically disposed of by the Government announcement at the last meeting of this Council that although the Government could not undertake the work, it had no objection to individual owners installing such separate meters themselves. We do not press this request on the Government, but will endeavour to persuade both landlords and tenants of tenement houses to come to a satisfactory arrangement whereby the distribution of water passing through the Government meter in each house may be properly determined.

To compel landlords to instal meters is a matter that is beset with many difficulties, as it concerns not only houses in the rider- main districts but also houses outside them, and it also affects existing unmetered houses as well as new houses that may be built in the future. While we have every sympathy for the poor who, without meters, would have to obtain their water solely from the

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