Sessional_Paper_1930 — Page 52

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Kong, is taking up Sport, must be an important factor on the question of adequacy.

(e) It is interesting to note that of the total acreage of 87.33 acres available for allotment by the permanent Recreation Grounds Committee only 143% has been allotted to Chinese. This does not include ground such as the Hong Kong Cricket Club and the Kowloon Football Club, which do not come within the permanent Recreation Grounds Committee. If the ap- proximate area of these grounds were also included the percentage allotted to the Chinese would be even less. The following summary shows the pre- sent allotments :-

Area at Wong Nei Chong R. G.

Allotted to:

(1) British

24.24 acres

Caroline Hill R. G.

6.57

JJ

Queen's R. G.

11.67

"

JJ

J

Sookunpoo Valley R. G.

10.36

>>

严重

King's Park R. G.

34.49

JJ

Total

87.33

28.94 acres or 33%

(2) Army

9.53

""

11%

(3) Navy

13.68

JJ

}}

152%

(4) Chinese

12.97

1

142%

(5) Schools & other nationalties 20.49

Police & St. Joseph's College 1.72

22.21

2

251%

$7.33

,,

100%

(f) If the present allotment with an area of about 5. acres, to the S.C.A.A., were withdrawn, the total area of playing fields now enjoyed by the Chinese in Hong Kong and Kowloon would only amount to about 8 acres out of the total of about 82 acres.

(g) In paragraph 4 of the Report it has been pointed out that the necessity for adequate open spaces has been realised only in recent years and that "this has been particularly the case in Hong Kong where the games spirit has been a recent and very rapid growth of modern times among the large Chinese population of the Colony." Admittedly "it is too late now to remedy the mistakes of the past in Victoria and in some parts of Kowloon except at prohibitive cost." We consider that the alienation of Caroline Hill would be one of those grave mistakes over which it would be futile to lament in future. We consider that the site is an ideal one for recreation purposes and that excepting for a very urgent public purpose, any policy advocating the sacrifice of Caroline Hill for a monetary consideration would be subversive to the sporting interests of the community.

4. We have, we hope, said enough to show that Caroline Hill should be retained as a permanent recreation ground, subject to any imperative public needs of the Colony. As we agree with paragraph 7 (e) of the Report, namely, to leave as far as possible to the discretion of the permanent Recreation Grounds Committee all detailed questions of in- dividual allotments we are anxious not to depart from this policy. We feel, however, constrained to express our decided opinion as to the strong moral claim of the S.C.A.A. to the retention of the present allotment for the following reasons:

(a) We understand that it was only after protracted negotiations, and also after the site had been offered for use by Naval ratings and rejected by the Navy because of the expense involved in preparing and laying it out as a playing field, that the S.C.A.A., at the risk of being dispossessed of their tempor- ary tenure, agreed to the Government's terms and conditions, and spent