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Enclosure No.4.
Hon. Colonial Secretary,
Yaumati ( and Vehicular ) Ferry.
However undesirable a monopoly may be, there is
no help for it in the matter of our cross Harbour Ferries.
A generally crowded Harbour with three lines of fairway to
cross make it essential that the very strictest control
should be exercised: and anything that may tend to the risks
of Harbour racing must be avoided.
2.
A Monopoly then being contemplated, and one
involving peculiar dangers, it has to be recognized that
these dangers are so grave as to demand special consideration
of the extent of Government control to be exercised or
rather the extent to which Government responsibilities in
the matter can properly be delegated.
3.
It is possible to point at once to the admirable
running of the Star Ferry Company and to conclude that no
Government Department could do better. Which is true:
but Government may be paying too high a price for the work
done. It pays by the sacrifice of the control of a part
of the Harbour Frontage for a long period of years
-
up to
1949 during which there is no power (except by resumption)
to demand alterations: and it is not inconceivable that
development may demand say a second Ferry from the East
side of the Star Ferry Pier at Ice House Street to the
East side of Kowloon. Reports made in 1913 show that we
had drifted dangerously near the loss of important parts of
the water front by the leasing of pier rights for long
periods. In 1949 we stand to be quite clear again on the
expiry of long lease periods, but a lot of work was
necessary in 1913 and there-after to remove the smaller
rights which had been by way of establishing themselves
almost unnoticed. It was then that it was decided that in
new Ferry arrangements Government should themselves build
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