17.
The reason why in situ exchanges cannot be granted to landowners in development areas has been explained many times in the past. Such a course would be manifestly unfair to other landowners whose land was less propitiously situated and to those owners of land exchange entitlements who have waited a considerable time for an exchange.
18.
You suggest that cash compensation for land should be 1/6 of the market price in layout areas and 1/12 of it elsewhere. However, you do not put forward any calculations to support these suggestions. As I have already pointed out, expenditure on roads, water supply, police stations, schools and other public facilities in the New Territories is greatly in excess of the revenue derived from sales of land within the New Territories. The Govern- ment will do all it can to build new houses for villagers, before their villages are removed; sometimes this is not possible because of the sequence of the land formation programme. In such cases, rental allowance will be paid until the new houses are ready.
19.
The Housing Authority has recently reconsidered the allocation of shops to shopkeepers whose premises are cleared for development but has decided, for practical reasons, that the policy of cash compensation should continue. The level of cash compensation is being re- examined.
20.
Welfare assistance is available to all who come within the eligibility limits. This applies equally to those who are affected by development clearances.
21.
You have proposed that a New Territories Affairs Committee be established, comprising the Heung Yee Kuk and the Secretary for the New Territories and other officials, and have compared it with the Urban Council. But no comparison is possible between arrangements for the New Territories and for the old urban areas of Hong Kong. Whereas the population of the urban area has for some years now been more or less static and geographically homogeneous, that of the New Territories is changing very fast, both numerically and in the balance between indigenous and non- indigenous residents; and it is also characterised by geographical division into a series of self-contained towns which are expanding very quickly. In these rapidly evolving circumstances, it is clear that quite different arrangements will be required. While I agree that the Rural Committees and the Kuk itself should have a part to play in these arrangements, proper regard must also be had both to the interests of the numerically larger non-indigenous section of the New Territories population and also to the differing needs and state of development of individual townships. This approach is compatible with the continuing statutory role of the Heung Yee Kuk as the Government's adviser in New Territories matters as a whole, to which I attach importance.
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