CO129-540-5 Water supply- Shing Mun Valley Waterworks scheme 11-5-1932 - 7-12-1932 — Page 109

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keep pace with the growth of the Colony and the extra

demand for water. Of the improvements already sanctioned, the only one of any importance of which full use could not be made during the current season is the Aberdeen scheme. On the completion of the new upper Aberdeen Reservoir, estimated to hold

175,000,000 gallons, the water in the old lower Aberdeen Reservoir was pumped into the new reservoir in order that the necessary repairs to the lower dam could be undertaken.

3. There is no doubt that the population generally has expected too much from the improvements which have been carried out during the last few years. Though I think I am justified in saying that the Government had given them no grounds for their expectations, their hopes had been unduly raised by the completion of the Kowloon Byewash Reservoir, the Cross Harbour Pipe Line, and the new Aberdeen Reservoir, and by the extensions of the catchwaters; and the severe restrictions necessary this year, so soon after the hardships of 1929, have come as a rude shock, and have roused a very intense feeling that the earliest possible steps must be taken to save the Colony from similar troubles in future.

4.

I do not for a moment wish to create the impression that the restiveness now evident in the Colony is likely to take the form of riotous outbreaks.

The whole community is accepting the serious

discomforts and difficulties of today with highly

commendable patience and good temper.

But it is not

possible

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