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X. SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES.

As in the years immediately preceding the war, the relief work in the Colony was carried out for the most part by a relief section of the Medical Department for the greater part of the year.

The department received valuable assistance both from members of the Salva- tion Army and of the British Red Cross Society, aided greatly by very generous gifts of food supplies, medicines, instruments, clothes and even an ambulance from the Joint Organisation of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Mention must be made too of the many acts of personal service and gifts from all ranks of the Navy, Army and Air Force in Hong Kong.

Close cooperation, also, existed between the department and charitable bodies as, for example, the Hong Kong Social Welfare Council, under the leadership of the Bishop of Hong Kong, and the Tung Wah Hospitals Corporation, Chinese Chamber of Commerce, U.N.R.R.A.. C.N.R.R.A., and the Commissioner of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of China in Hong Kong.

The main activities of the relief section included the following :-

(1) Distribution of rations to distressed members of the European, Chinese, Fortuguese, Indian and Eurasian communities and to orphanages, babies homes, homes for the blind, aged and others; several thousand were in receipt of these rations at one time;

(2) Repatriation of displaced persons from Hainan Island, Java, Singapore and .

other out-ports:

(3) Rehabilitation of repatriates;

(4) Free food kitchens to provide cooked rice and bread to the very poor and-

workless at centres eltuated at convenient places throughout the urban area; twenty-five thousand tickets were in use at these kitchens at one period:

(5) Individual case work to assist those in need to get on to their feet;

(6) Organization of camps and hostels for the housing of those in transit through Hong Kong and for those unable to pay the heavy "tes money" for house room; at one time or another these camps and hostels included the following:-

(a) groups of residences in Prince Edward Road, Kowloon,

(b) Kowloon Hotel.

(c) To Yuen Hotel,

(d) Tai Hang, St. John Ambulance Brigade Headquarters,

(e) Ma Tau Chung Camp, Kowloon,

(f) Aberdeen Camp.

(g) Morrison Hill Camp,

(h) Rosary Hill Relief Centre.

The first four centres were closed during the last quarter of 1946 and handed back to their owners.

At the peak period of this work, nearly 3,000 persons were being housed. fed and cared for in these centres:

(7) Provision of accommodation for street sleepers was made under the aegis of Salvation Army workers at Kennedy Town and Wanchai on Hong Kong Island:

(8) Provision of accommodation for 385 orphan children at King's Park

Orphanage, Kowloon;

(9) Other activities, also under the guidance of the Salvation Army included

(a) Distribution of gifts of 300 tons of clothes, mostly from U.N.R.R.A. (b) Operation of a "Missing Persona Bureau" to help in the tracing of families, units of which had lost contact with one another, (c) Managing an "Advisory Bureau" for the dependants of service men, (d) Maintaining a free school for poor children at Wanchai to keep

them off the streets.

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The aims of the relief section were to give a helping hand to those in need, not with the idea of pauperising the recipient but, whenever possible, to get them on to their own feet and to make them independent of charitable aid.

By the careful selection of trained workers who could be relied upon to be sympathetic without being sentimental, it was possible to eliminate the majority of cases where charity was abused. The process was not always painless. For example, when gangsters were barred from making a fortune out of rice intended for the hungry, two partially successful efforts were made to burn the free food kitchen down. It soon became obvious to the unscrupulous that they would have to look elsewhere, and it can be fairly said that the element of waste and undeserved relief was very largely eliminated by the end of 1946.

A reasonably solid foundation of public assistance, or a relatively restricted scale, of course, is being laid down on which a social welfare department of Govern- ment can build in the days to come.

P. 3. SELWYN-CLARKE,

Director of Medical Servier,

24th February, 1947.