Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 411

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shake public confidence to its foundations, but as a careful perusal of his paper fails to disclose how these disastrous consequences are to be brought about, this statement, being a mere assertion, calls for no comment from us.

4. From the statement which next follows the reader would infer that the Public Health Bill had been withdrawn from the Legislative Council and relegated to the Sanitary Board with a view to imparting to the measure some element of popularity. This statement, which is scarcely respectful to the Legislature, appears however to be levelled more at the Government than at the Sanitary Board, and we leave it therefore to be met by the Government, but as regards the Board we should state that when we first addressed ourselves to the consideration of the Public Health Bill, we were well aware that the latter had formed the principal portion of a larger and more comprehensive Draft that included building technica- lities having no relation to the Public Health, and that the reason these building clauses were withdrawn and recast by themselves as a separate Bill entitled the Building Act, was because it was intended that the Public Health Ordinance should be limited purely to matters relating to Health and be worked under the supervision of the Sanitary Board, while the Building Ordinance was to be worked under that of the Public Works Department.

5. Regret is expressed by Dr. Ho KAI that the consideration of the Bill should not have been left to the proposed new elective Board to be formed under the provisions of the Bill, but as one of the professed objects of the Bill is to create this new body, it is not clear how the elective Board could have considered any- thing at all until it had first been brought into existence by the passage of the Bill into Law.

6. Regret is also expressed that the deliberations of the Board should have been conducted with closed doors. It will be obvious to His Excellency, however, that the drafting of legislative enactments would become an impossibility, if the public were taken into collaboration in the task. To us moreover it appeared that the proper time for the public discussion and criticism of the Bill would be when it had reached the hands of the Legislature.

7. Next ensues a disquisition on practical as against theoretical public sanita- tion. From a theoretical point of view Dr. Ho KAI says that in framing the pro- visions of this Bill, he would have gone further than the Board, yet in the next breath, he adds that the provisions of the Bill as framed by the Board, are "un- necessary, uneconomical, and unconstitutional." We have had, as may readily be conceived, some difficulty in following this line of argument, but whatever may be intended to be conveyed we beg to refer you to paragraphs 5, 6, and 7 of the letter of the Board dated the 22nd of last December, wherein it is set forth that in consequence of the high value of building land and for other reasons we had had to take a practical view of the requirements of the people rather than a theoretical one, and that we had therefore had to limit ourselves to recommendations which fall very far short of English sanitary legislation.

8. The next remarks indirectly accuse the Sanitary Board of the error of legislating for Chinese as for Europeans. These accusations we presume refer to the provisions in the Bill for light and ventilation, and for the limitation of overcrowding. In respect of the overcrowding clauses we desire to explain that the minimun cube of 300 feet for each adult person was adopted by us in view of that rudimentary principle of sanitary science which lays down that a minimum of 2,000 cubic feet of fresh air per head must be provided every hour in order to prevent the air from becoming fouled by putrescent organic matters exhaled from the lungs and skin of the persons living in it. With so reduced an allowance as 2,000 cubic feet per hour it becomes necessary to change the air at least once every hour in order to enable it to support life in health. In these circumstances less than 300 cubic feet could not be pres- cribed by any Sanitary Authority. We submit furthermore that no home, whether European or native, can be a healthy home without the light and the facilities for ventilation sought to be secured by the Bill. These we reiterate fall far short of European sanitary provisions on the one hand, while on the other hand nothing has been adduced to warrant the assumption that the constitution of the Chinaman is so far different from that of the rest of the human race, that his dwelling may do with less light, less air, and less ventilation, than the minimums provided in the Bill. Nor has the question of class legislation at all preoccupied us in the framing of the measure under criticism. We have simply recommended, after the most careful consideration of local conditions and peculiarities, the least cube of space. and the least ventilation which any habitation may have without becoming un-

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