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labourers there and stand over them and see that they all work for a full 12-hour or 14-hour shift. These days have gone and the contractor is under contract to do the work in a certain time. We have worked this out to the best of our ability with a great deal of care, and we believe that in order to do the work efficiently and safely, without absolute chaos, this is the minimum time it will take. In a reply that I gave to Legislative Council when the question was asked 2 weeks ago I don't propose to read the whole of the reply—I did start in this way: If it were possible to completely close this length of Nathan Road to traffic and at the same time stop all crossing traffic, we could complete this contract in less than 6 months. If at the same time it were possible to ignore the need to renew, replace and enlarge existing underground services and the needs of tens of thousands of people living in this part of Kowloon, it would be possible to reconstruct the road surface in a few weeks. And I think that this is the crux of the problem. It is a very real problem. There are these very large numbers, of services owned by different people, many of them carrying dangerous goods, i.e. gas and electricity. You can't just play with that with pick axes and it does take a long time. I can assure you we have gone into this. We are very conscious of the criticism we get every time we dig up roads and we are not so stupid as to take longer over the work than is absolutely necessary.

MRS. ELLIOTT:-Just one more supplementary question, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the contractors. Having had some experience of dilatory contractors, do the conditions of the contract penalize the contractor if he is behind the time?

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:-The conditions of contract do penalize the contractor if he is behind the time due to his own fault and this is a fundamental point of the contract. But the contractor does have rights and the general thought in Hong Kong is that this penalty clause gives the client a big stick to threaten the contractor with and, in the end, possibly get a reduction in price. This is not so. The penalty clause has to be used with extreme care and a very great sense of responsibility by the engineers in charge of the job.

MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, may I ask if this penalty has ever been used?

MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Mr. Chairman, may I ask the Director of Public Works whose workmen are usually on the job between 5 and 11 p.m.? Are they workmen of the public utilities, or are there any workmen of the Public Works Department involved?

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:-We have no workmen now. They are all contractor's workmen. I passed this site last Friday at 8 o'clock and there were no people working there. I did enquire why not and I

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got a reasonably satisfactory answer. Firstly, No. 1 Typhoon Signal was up. Secondly they had just completed concreting the first section of the road down at the harbour, the south end. They had in fact done some concreting and the concreting had come to the end for that night. They were not ready to start on the next section until the following morning. Thirdly it was 8 o'clock and what workmen were still on the site were having their meal, but I would imagine that they were entitled to have a meal break and I would say that it could be any one of the 5 public utility companies or the Public Works Department contractors associated with water works or drainage works or the main contractor who would, or would not be, on the site as the case would be.

MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-I raised this question, Mr. Chairman, because last week I was driving along Nathan Road on two evenings, that was before we had any news of the Typhoon, and in that section of Nathan Road I think it was coming down from Mong Kok—the road was very quiet. There were no workmen and I think the people whom I jostled when I got out of car, were all complaining about the traffic conditions arising from the road situation. I would suggest that perhaps the Director of Public Works might wish to see what can be done to speed up work at night.

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:-Mr. Chairman, there have been, since the contract was let, an average of 80 people working there per day. Again this might not sound a lot and it certainly is not a lot spread over 2,000 ft. of road. 80 people during a day, of which probably 60 or 65% work in the early shift, that is the morning and afternoon shift from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and about 30-35% working in the late shift which is from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. So this means that probably 55 or so, work in the morning and 25 or so in the evening. Another reason why you don't see a large army of people is that the concrete mixing is not done on the site. The concrete mixing, again largely with the intent to reduce the inconvenience of the dust and so on, is not being done at the roadside but is being delivered ready mixed by lorries. If you go to any roadside, or any building site for that matter, I think you will find that the larger proportion of the labour there are labourers who are mixing concrete and putting aggregate into the concrete mixers or running along the alleyways with it. This staff is not there, and never will be there because all the concrete mixing is done off site and this, of course, does give an impression of lack of labour force.

MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, may I just ask that the Director of Public Works keeps an eye on the situation to make sure that the men don't have a meal time lasting all day?

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS:-This, Mr. Chairman, is none of my concern I'm afraid. It is the contractor's concern. He is paying them.

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