Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 181

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Minutes by His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government.

I visited the Chinese encampment at Kennedy Town yesterday accompanied by the Surveyor General and Major Dempster, and we walked through it. The filth and stenches on all sides were something indescribable and were enough to produce typhoid fever. In dry weather it must be much worse, as occasionally this camp, which is on a hill side, is partially cleansed by the heavy rain in summer. About 40 huts appear to have been pulled down or about one third of the

camp.

the

A Police Station is about to be erected and will be commenced very soon, on very spot where these huts are erected. Therefore they must all go, and if the Acting Attorney General says that any legal notice or application to the Magistrate is necessary, it should be made at once. If he thinks that the repeated notices given by the Surveyor General's Department, which have been hitherto utterly disregarded, are sufficient, then a last notice should be given to them by the Acting Registrar General, and if they disregard it, the whole camp will be pulled down and the ground cleared for building.

I cannot help feeling some commiseration for these people on account of their poverty, but it must be remembered

1st. That they are trespassers and have been warned eighteen months ago to

somewhere else.

2nd. That their camp is a standing menace to the health of the whole commu- nity by reason of its filthy condition, and that it is the bounden duty of the Government, in the interests of the community, to remove this nuisance, and it would be equally the duty of the Government to do so if they were not trespassers but were paying rent. They are therefore liable to prosecution.

3rd. They are keeping pigs without licences, and are therefore liable to

prosecution.

In all cases where pigs are kept within the limits of the City without licences, the Law should be strictly enforced. The pigkeepers seem to think that the city exists principally for their own convenience.

I presume that it will not cost very much to transport these people and their effects in junks across to Mong-kok or whatever place may be selected by the Sur- veyor General, and I am willing to sanction such expenditure.

They are entitled to no compensation, and it would be a most impolitic action to grant them any compensation ex misericordia. It would inevitably encourage swarms of their countrymen to come over from Kwong-tung and do as they have. done; settle down on Crown land without premission, and then, when either Go- vernment wanted to use the ground or their utter disregard of all sanitary rules rendered their removal necessary, expect to be compensated for removing.

My own opinion is that it is not desirable to encourage a further influx from China of persons of this class. But this question is now under consideration by the Land Commission.

(Signed), W. H. MARSH.

8th September, 1886.

Send Copy to Surveyor General and Acting Registrar General.

(Signed);

W. H. MARSH.

Since writing the above minute I have been informed that these squatters are not so poor as I supposed. They have been able to offer a sum of money to any one who can either compel or induce the Government to leave them undisturbed where they are.

(Signed), W. H. MARSH.