CO129-584-2 Estimates 1941-2 21-2-1941 - 11-6-1941 — Page 195

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fare and these draft estimates include provision for a

Fisheries Research Station, and an Experimental Agricultural

Station in the New Territories. Provision for the building

of the Fisheries Research Station was included in the printed

estimates for the current year when it was anticipated that the

cost would be met by a grant from the Colonial Development Fund.

During the year a nucleus staff has been engaged with the

approval of this Council and it is now proposed to erect the building itself next year from Colonial funds. These schemes

should not only improve the nutrition of the population of Hong

Kong but help to make the Colony more self-supporting in the

matter of food supplies. The draft estimates also include

provision for the daily collection of nightsoil from the tenements

in the urban area by labour directly employed by the Sanitary

Department, in place of the present system under which the

nightsoil is removed by freelance coolies employed by the

householders.

This scheme is sponsored by the Urban Council

and strongly recommended by my Honourable friend the Director

of Medical Services, who is Government's adviser in health

matters. The Urban Council has suggested, and Government favours

the suggestion, that the additional annual expenditure of between

4 and 5 lakhs should be met by an increase of one per cent on the

rates. The existing unsatisfactory arrangements are estimated

to cost householders half a million dollars annually, and the

proposal will relieve those concerned of that expenditure and

spread it over the community gencrally, which seems only fair

in so far as the sewers provided for those whose tenements

have flush systems have been paid for likewise from taxation

by the community as a whole. Provision has also been made for

an Infectious Diseases Hospital, and a new Public Mortuary and

Disinfecting Station, Kowloon, for a new block for the Central

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