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HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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it will even the incidence of the payment. The remaining three concessions for which a request is made are of a peculiar nature. It is difficult for instance to compel landlords to instal meters in their houses. It would be reasonable to expect that the economic pressure as reflected in the rent would make them realise the desirability of such action and to that the Government must leave it for the time. The other concessions deal with the relations between the landlords and the tenants. It is admitted that tenants in this Colony are very difficult to handle from the Chinese landlords point of view, but that is no reason for passing the difficulty on to the shoulders of the Government. The Government can look only to the landlord and must leave him to arrange for the payment of excess consumption with those to whom he lets his premises, and so with the installation of meters on every floor of tenement houses the arrangement itself must be one between the landlord and his tenants. It requires very little reflection to see that this large work must at the best wait for it would be very difficult for the Government to deal direct with all the separate tenants of this large city. It must be remembered that some 40,000 extra meters would be required to supply all the floors of the Colony.
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No. 7 concession asking the Government to compel landlords to instal meters strengthens the impression that there landlords who put difficulties in the way of supplying their tenants with this necessary fitting: if that is true it would appear to show a serious want of the sense of civic duty, and Government feels that it is justified in asking for more assistance than this from those who make a profit out of property in the Colony, in their efforts to improve the cleanliness and the health of the Colony generally.
H.E. THE OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT.— Honourable Members of the Legislative Council, in view of the Colonial Secretary's full explanation of the Government's position, I feel that there is little left for me to say. I would however emphasize the point that the Government believes the change to be in the best interests of the community as a whole. It will introduce a uniform method of distribution and payment equitable to all classes alike and whether it tends to prevent waste, as the Government hopes and believes, or whether it fails to do this, as the Honourable the Senior Chinese unofficial member believes, it will at least ensure that the premises at which water is wasted will be charged for such waste. This fact alone will, we believe, check the waste of water and in so far as it does not do so will tend to increase the revenue, and very legitimately so. The Honourable the Senior Chinese unofficial member is correct in assuming that the present change from a rider-main system to a metered system is not, as he put it, a matter of revenue; its object is to obtain a more equitable and we hope less wasteful system of distribution. But I venture to remind Honourable Members that Sir Cecil Clementi, whose remarks have been so freely quoted,
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