Sessional_Paper_1907 — Page 514

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Mr. Shelton Hooper.-I think you might tell him, Mr. Ball, that we, as a Com- mission, are only the mouthpieces of the Governor, and that any questions that are put to him are as if they were put by the Governor direct, and his answers go to the Governor.

A. I will say what I know myself,-what I have seen myself.

The Chairman.-Please do.

That is what we want to hear.

119.—A.—I will first speak about the small matters. One subject is the limewashing. I see that the limewashing twice in the year is the cause of the expenditure of the people's money.

Fung Wa Chun.-Ask him to say that again, Mr. Ball.

A. Although it looks as if it were but a small matter, it is the cause of the expendi- ture of the people's money, and burdens the people.

Mr. Fung Wa Chun.-Tell him not to use the book language so much.

A.-(continued). It wastes the people's money, and is a burden to them. Although it is only twice a year. it really results in not only being done twice, because some who go to the Inspector and get him to look at it, say he says it is not proper, and it must be done again. Shops in Hongkong which pay a rental of $1,000, for them it is really a very unimportant matter to spend $8 or $9 upon limewashing, but those in Sai Ying Pun, such as in Third Street and High Stree, when they are limewashed, it causes expenditure of the whole month's rent. Then, as to the other side of the harbour, Sham Sui Po and Yaumati, it is heavier still.

The Chairman.-It is heavier still?

A. Yes.

Q.-In what way?

A. It is more difficult. I will tell you how it is. Because the rental over there is not so much, and besides after the whitewashing, the Inspector requires two or three weeks, -at the very quickest two weeks,- before it is looked at, and then it is mostly poor people that live over there, one family in a floor, or several lots of people.

Q-Does he mean bachelors or individuals ?

120.-A. Either a family or a mess. It is three days after the limewashing takes place before a report is made that the place has been limewashed, and then three weeks or a part of three weeks elapses before it is looked at. There is 24 days gone, and then places near the kitchen have become again darkened or blackened, and then when the Inspector comes to look at it. he says it is not proper and has to be done again, and then again, when it is washed again, he does not come and look at it immediately, but it will be another 8 or 10 days, or more than 20 days before the Inspector comes to see it again.

Mr. Shelton Hooper.-Before what?

A. Before the Inspector comes to see it again, and where it has been blackened, it will require to be limewashed over again. Then it presses most heavily upon the brick and tile shops, and upon the porcelain shops, because when the limewashing takes place, they have got to move everything away, and before the Inspector comes to look at it, they don't dare to move the things in again, so it is a great obstruction to the place.

Q.-Is he a large landowner on the Kowloon side?

A.-I am attending to some 59 shops over there. I have some myself, and my friends

have some.