Sessional_Paper_1901 — Page 512

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floor on which a case occurred was disinfected). This was carried out on the 21st an 22nd June, and if within that area no more cases occur this year, I think it will afford grounds for taking legal power to disinfect all houses within the City when next year it will be advisable to employ a very large number of men in February and disinfect the entire city quarter by quarter. If that does not succeed, the question will remain what structural changes shall be carried out and what property resumed, destroyed, or rebuilt.

13. In approaching this question it must be remembered that we shall be dealing with property worth from £100,000 to £150,000 per acre, and I do not feel competent to deal with so large a question without first obtaining the advice of an eminent Sanitarian. The letter of the Chamber of Commerce shows that a considerable section of the community consider the drainage to be in a dangerous condition. The Sanitary Board point out that houses are too high and call for an Ordinance restricting houses to once and a half the height of the width of the streets measured from kerb stone to kerb stone, and have on general principles that I cannot gainsay recommended that six private streets at the ends of which are houses erected over archways shall be entirely opened by the removal of the latter which will, the Acting Director of Public Works estimates, cost one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.

If one or the other assumption of the cause of insanitary conditions be correct it will cost a very large sum indeed. I question if the community quite realize how much, but whatever the sum. if the result be to banish plague, it will be well spent. The letter of the Chamber of Commerce shows that the people of Hongkong will not object to any expenditure within their means, and I am quite certain that in asking you to send out a Sanitary Engineer of such eminence in his profession as will command public confidence, to report upon the general state of Hongkong, -its drainage system, its water system, and the general question of sanitation, I have the support of all classes of the community. May I suggest that yon telegraph to me the expense of such an examination and report when I can lay the matter be- fore the Legislative Council for approval ? Mr. Osbert Chadwick's exhaustive and able reports of 1882 and 1889 on the sanitation of Hongkong are now being widely real and considered. By some it is held that his recommendations have been neglected, indeed this appears to be the opinion of the majority. My study of the conditions does not lead me to this conclusion. The matter will be set at rest by such a report as I suggest upon the present necessities of the City of Victoria and the rapidly growing town on Kowloon Peninsula as regards sanitation.

14. I have in this despatch only dealt with the question of Sanitation in rela-' tion to plague; but much has been done and is being done by the Public Works Department in dealing with the Anopheles Mosquito and I see solid ground for hope that with continued effort the curse of malarial fever may ultimately practically disappear from our returns.

15. I enclose for your information three of the returns that are sent to me daily. I have had these returns made in the hope that one day the accumulated facts might affor some clue to the etiology of the disease; hence I have requested that in the history of the cases, the places where employed, and the places where food was procured, should be noted, as it is possible that wouldy rice might be the orig nal host of the plague bacillus, and if many cases could be traced to the same source of supple a clue might possibly be afforded.

To the Right Honourable

I have the honour to be,

Sir.

Your most obedient Servant,

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES

HENRY A. BLAKE..

Enclosures Nos. 8, 9 & 10.