Sessional_Paper_1923 — Page 130

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teeming populations of the adjacent disturbed provinces, who in times of disorder in China flock down to Hongkong in tens of thousands, that it is the bounden duty of the Government to make reservations, by means of demarcations of areas and special conditions of sale, in such areas for (a) British residents, and (b) permanent residents of other races respectively. (See also paragraphs 123 and 124).

111. As regards the British residents in the Kowloon Peninsula, the need for measures being urgently taken by the Government is manifest. The Sou- thern portion of the Peninsula, which up to about 10 years ago was happily free from the attentions of the land speculator, has lately been passing through a severe land boom which, unfortunately for the general body of tenants, who in the long run are the sufferers, still continues. The result of this boom has been that the properties in what is the centre of the district mainly inha- bited by Europeans, have in the course of the last two years soared from about 2 dollars to over 7 dollars a square foot on sale prices; and at Yaumati to an even greater height.

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* 112. This boom price of land in Kowloon forms a sharp contrast to the Hill Districts on the Island of Hongkong where land is being put up to auction by the Government at 12 cents a square foot, and where it is the custom for the applicant for the land not to be bid against, (a custom which we recom- mend the Government to convert into a fixed and immutable fact by selling land in future in the Hill District to the first applicant without any auction whatever, because he has in most cases been to some trouble and expense in selecting the site).

113. The recent huge sale prices of land at Tsimshatsui where British residents have been accustomed to live for years past, and at Yaumati where Chinese residents of the middle and working classes make their homes, must be regarded as a positive disaster to the tenants; and this situation calls for immediate and drastic action on the part of the Government, in order to protect permanent residents who, surely, have the right in a British Colony 10 expect decent housing accommodation at a rent which bears some reason- able proportion to their incomes, and to be protected from the economic and other consequences caused by the influx into the Colony of tens of thousands of Chinese from the mainland.

114. The question of the necessity of making European reservations has been pressed upon the Government by leading articles in all the four British newspapers in this Colony, and also in the speech of the Vice-Chairman at the last Annual General Meeting of the Kowloon Residents' Association see Enclosure 6 containing printed extracts from those articles and that speech: and it has been shown that the question is not a racial question. It is primarily an economic question, but it is also one involving the health and reasonable comfort of Europeans living in a climate which is hot and trying in the summer.

115. European Reservations are also advocated in letters (38), (40) and (42) in Enclosure 1.

A side argument in favour of European Reservations is that, in times of strike or other internal commotions, an aggregation of British residents in one district renders it easier for them to take common action for the defence of the whole community against disorders.

* 116. We feel that such reservations are more especially necessary in Kowloon on economic grounds, having regard to the fact that the British residents in the Peninsula are, generally speaking, less wealthy and consequently less able to pay a high rent than those who live in the Hill District.

117. The position of affairs as regards housing accommodation for British residents at Kowloon is one of great gravity, because wealthy Chinese have bought up, during the last few months, at high prices, several rows of build- ings, situate in the District between Nathan Road on the West and Chathani