CO129-540-7 Dredging of Hong Kong Harbour 26-4-1932 - 1-10-1932 — Page 97

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was completed they again requested Government to dredge the

approaches to a depth of thirty-six feet, basing their

request on the ground that the size of vessels using the

wharves and in Hong Kong all the big passenger liners

prefer to lie alongside a wharf rather than to lie in the

stream - was continually growing larger, as instanced by

the S.S. "Empress of Japan" which was put into commission

in 1930 and the S.S. "President Hoover" and the

S.S. "President Coolidge" which were put into commission in

1931.

3. On the general question of the responsibility

for dredging outside the immediate vicinity of privately

owned wharves the Harbour Advisory Committee and my

Executive Council, to both of which bodies the whole matter

was referred, were unanimously of opinion that this was a

Government liability, With this view I concur generally,

though not to the extent that a private concern can erect

a pier wheresoever it will in the harbour, and then

demand that the approaches to it should be dredged at

Government expense.

4.

There is no doubt that the area coloured blue

on the plan is generally of inadequate depth, but I am

not sure that the same can be said of the area coloured

red and hatched blue. The depth throughout this area is

not less than thirty-two feet, the minimum depth in the

approach to the most southerly berth being thirty-five feet,

This was the depth dredged to in 1927/1928. At that time

the Company did not wish for a greater depth than this, and

a recent re-survey shows that there has been no

appreciable

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