No_3_October_and_November_and_December__1951 — Page 42

By this time most of the prewar residents of the Colony had returned and were working hard to o' tain for their firms some share of the business which the favourable conditions were producing in the Colony and to participate in the profits which well-directed enterprise could make.

At this point I must mention that one of the most discouraging things which confronted the prewar residents in the Colony on their return was the fact that practically all their records had been destroyed, and very few firms were fortunate enough to be able to recover in their entirety their prewar account books, registers of members, files, etc. The consequence to private and public companies was serious enough, as one can imagine, but for the various Government departments this loss was an even more severe handicap. In course of time some documents and papers

were recovered from most unlikely places and by dint of untiring effort were brought to some semblance of order and used as a nucleus for the re-establishment of

records.

For instance, the Crown Lands & Survey Office and the Land Registry, the files of which were of vital importance to hundreds of thousands of people, had a terrific job to reinstate their records while, at the same time, attempting to cope with the work entailed in keeping up with the rapidly increasing number of land sales and property registrations.

The Waterworks Office had to

cope not only with the matter of lost records, and with the rehabilitation of broken pipe lines, damaged pumping stations, and neglected equipment, but were very soon faced with the problem of providing adequate water supply to new districts and the increasing number of new consumers.

The Police Department were expected to take up their duties of maintaining law and order with efficiency and despatch, yet there was hardly a police station left standing in the Colony at the time of the Japanese surrender. Hasty repairs had to be effected to the few stations that could be made habitable, but in most cases districts were administered from requisitioned private houses that were totally inadequate for the purpose.

The Architectural Office of the Public Works Department, with their own offices destroyed and dismantled, were required to design and erect accommodation for practically all Government depart ments and new quarters for all classes of Government servants. One of their first tasks was to build temporary offices for themselves and other sections of the Public Works Department with stone obtained from demolished rice godowns.

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Some idea of the amount of construction work that has been completed during the past few years, may be obtained by standing on the deck of a steamship or ferry in the Harbour and looking up the slopes of the hills towards the Peak remembering that six years ago about 70% of the existing buildings about 70% of the existing buildings above mid-levels were uninhabitable, and that a goodly proportion of the magnificent buildings we now has been completed during this period. Quite a number of these buildings are new apartment blocks from three to seven storeys in height. The number of new office blocks which has been completed in the City itself also makes up an impressive total. The most notable evidence of the expansion and growth of the Colony, however, is to be found on the Mainland, where a great many spinning, weaving and

knitting mills of imposing dimen- sions, and factories for the manufacture of enamel ware, aluminium ware, rubber and plastic products, torch lights, diesel engines and other engineering equipment, have been established and for which new buildings had to be provided. Those who were acquainted with the Colony in prewar years and who now make a trip through the Lai Chi Kok, Kowloon City and Tsun Wan areas are amazed at

at the evidence of the commercial expans- ion that has taken place here during the past few years.

I feel that in voicing my own con- fidence in the future of Hong Kong, I am reflecting the opinion not only of the commercial community but of every individual who makes Hong Kong his home.

The programme of major works, totalling over $150 million which the Government has earmarked for the next few years, includes a new City Hall, Government offices, official quarters, schools, hospitals and clinics, police stations, markets, re- clamation work, roads, workshops, extensions to the aerodrome and waterworks improvements, And this, together with the new office blocks and other commercial build- ings being planned by private in- terests and the extensive schemes for housing of the labour and middle classes contemplated by the Hong Kong Housing Society and other semi-official agencies, would not be undertaken by a community with any fear of the future.

We have every confidence that we shall be permitted to assist and to participate in the commercial devel- opment which is long overdue in China and to whose economic wel- fare we are so closely bound and for which our policy is so closely attuned.

STEEL BROTHERS & CO.,

(INCORPORATED IN ENGLAND)

HEAD OFFICE

24/28. LOMBARD STREET, LONDON,

BRANCHES

LTD.

TEAK

ITALY SAUDI ARABIA

INDIA

PAKISTAN

BURMA

JAPAN

CEYLON

TRANSJORDAN

LEBANON BRITISH GUIANA

ISRAEL TANGANYIKA

CYPRUS

CEMENT

PETROLEUM PRODUCTS

THAILAND

CUBA

BUILDING MATERIALS

HARDWARE MACHINERY TOOLS ROOFING FELT REINFORCING STEEL

BENFORD (Warwick Eng.) Concrete Mixers

Telephones: 32839, 23616.

Sole Agents for

MINIMAX Fire Extinguishers

SHELL HOUSE, HONG KONG.

Cables: "STEEL"

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