XN000022-1983-03-19 — Page 7

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But that is at beat a partial picture. Both the Government and the community are keenly concerned with the welfare of the people who live here. We seek to provide, within the resources available to us (because in spite of appearances we are not a rich community), services such as housing, social welfare, health and education which are essential

to the well-being of our society.

As you move around Hong Kong, as I hope you will, you will

see much that remains to be done. No one is more aware of that than we are. These are parts of this city of which we are not proud. But I hope that you will judge us, not only against the things we need to improve but against the size of the task, against the record of what has been achieved here over the last three decades, and the magnitude of our programmes for the future.

To set the scene let me remind you that at the end of the last war Hong Kong had a population of less than a million; today we number 5.3 million, If the same rate of increase had applied to Australia, its population today would be over 40 million, instead of only 15 million. Successive influxes of immigrants have dramatically increased our population, and have put an enormous strain on our social and economic infrastructure. To provide jobs, housing, education, medical services, and all the other things essential to a reasonable life, for such a large population in a territory which has no natural resources and very little space has been a mammoth task.

I could keep you here a long time this evening regaling you with statistics on what has been done to meet that challenge; on what we are now doing and what we plan to do. But the time allotted to me, and no doubt your patience, is limited so I will confine myself to a few examples in the fields of public housing, social welfare, education

and medical and health services.

Housing

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First, our public housing programme. This was launched in 3954, following a disastrous fire on Christmas Day 1953 which left more than 50,000 people homeless. In its initial stage, a number of two-storey structures with very basic facilities were built to provide emergency housing for the fire victims. These soon gave way to six and seven-storey resettlement blocks, which in turn are now being replaced by modern housing estates.

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