Sessional_Paper_1908 — Page 624

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1. The Committee are glad to learn that His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government is interesting himself in this question and they note with pleasure that the Government appear prepared to undertake the construction of such a long felt want as a larger and more conveniently placed typhoon shelter.

2. It will be within His Excellency's recollection that in 1898 this Chamber favoured the construction of such a harbour at a point West of the Slaughter House, giving a sheltered area of about 80 acres at an estimated cost of $100,000, but the then Governor was unable to recommend to the Secretary of State for the Colonies that the undertaking should be entered into owing to the heavy expendi ure which the work would involve. Even at that time, nearly six years ago, the inadequacy of the present Causeway Bay refuge was strongly urged, as well as the fact that on account of its situation at the East end of the Harbour, from which direction the prevailing storms come, it was necessary for the Craft using it to seek refuge at the earliest approach of bad weather or employ stean launches to tow them against the head wind. Since that time the further increase in the number of steam launches, cargo boats and sampans has accentuated the want of sufficient and easily accessible refuge in the harbour during bad weather. The Mong Kok Tsui scheme now proposed by the Gov- ernment suffers from no objections on the ground of either inaccessibility or restricted area, and His Excellency may feel assured that its construction will be welcomed by this Chamber and still more so by the large Chinese population living on smal! craft in the Harbour.

3. The allusion in your letter that other schemes have been considered, but have been open to more objection, rather confines the ground on which comments are invited to the advantages, or disadvantages, arising from transference of the typhoon harbour from Cause- way Bay to Kowl on. Although this is not inferred in your letter, the Committee recoguise that additional building land is required on the Hongkong side and the reclamation of Causeway Bay will be necessary to meet this want in the near futuro. The inconvenience of the Causeway Bay refuge has already been enlarged upon, an, as the Mong Kok Tsui site woukl not only enable small craft to reach it under sail, which in the present case is often impossible, the Committee welcome the change of locality. The fact that the new scheme would provide nearly three times as much space as the present refuge does for small craft to take refuge in is another point in its favour.

1. It has, however, occurred to my Committee that the rapid development of the Kowloon Peninsula will, in all probability, exceed in the next few years that already made in the past, and this will especially be so when the projected railway to Canton is actually commenced. The Mong Kok Tsui site appears likely therefore to be a too valuable one for the purpose of a typhoon harbour, as regulations would in all probability be put into force forbidding its waters being used during fine weather by craft engaged in loading or discharging cargo into godowns which may be built on the adjoining land.

5. In view of the fact that the other alternate schemes to which you refer have not been explained to my Committee it is rather difficult to suggest a better site, as the overnment may enjoy more exact information, which, if in possession of the Committee, would probably oblige them to take a similar view of the matter as the Government has done, but it would appear that a larger and better sheltered typhoon harbour might be readily constructed in Cheung Sha Wan Bay, which possesses equally deep water as that at Mong Kok Tsui. breakwater could be made straight across the Bay from Lai Chi Kok to Sanshuipo (about 6,000 feet apart) or a smaller area could be enclosed by a breakwater running directly South from the village of Cheung Sha Wan (3,500 feet) meeting at right angles a similar wall carried due West from Sam Shui Po for 1,500 feet.

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6. Such a harbour would be directly under the shelter of the Kowloon hills on the North and the spurs running South along the Kowloon Peninsula. Stonecutters' Island would act as a great protective on the South West side. This appears, therefore, a more sheltered site than that at Mong Kok Tsui, which is open to the full force of a South-westerly gale sweeping across three miles of open harbour from the direction of Green Island, as did the typhoon on November, 1900, when it recurved and piled up steam launches, sampans, and junks as hopeless wreckage on the Yaumati shore.

7. It has already been pointed out in Paragraph 2 that the direction from which the prevailing storms come is from the East, and in l'aragraph 3 that the inability of small craft to reach Causeway Bay shelter in such occasions under their own sail does not apply to the Mong Kok Tsui site. The Cheung Sha Wan site being in the same direction, and the nearer