1966 — Page 178

Page 178 of 279

331

reign supreme, and the "greatest use of the beaches for the greatest numbers".

Mr. Chairman, I would like to associate myself with Mr. Sonny SALES' remarks concerning the help given by the staff of the various departments concerned with the Urban Council, and with these few words I support the Motion. (Applause).

MR. B. A. BERNACCHI :- Mr. Chairman, once again, we have the adoption of the Statement of Aims and simply reading through the Statement of Aims for 1967, it shows how we deal with matters concerning the every day life of the citizens of Hong Kong. I think, perhaps, one or two of the terminologies are too technical for the man in the street. For instance, who ever heard of Environmental Hygiene or even Food Hygiene - what is meant in the one case is the control over mosquitoes, flies and dirt and in the other case an adequate control over food for man so as to prevent epidemics or food poisoning.

Health Education sounds a bit better, at least it means what it says, namely, the education of the public in health matters, and I would commend to members of the Urban Council the sub-paragraph "To produce and make available to the public leaflets and other material on subjects of public health importance." This, and all communications from or with the authority of the Urban Council, must be in English and in Chinese. I remember that this was the subject of a motion many years ago dealing with information about all kinds of licences, and I repeat, a lot of our people are not conversant with the English written language and for an even larger majority of the citizens of Hong Kong, Chinese is their mother language. We deal with the every day life of the citizens of Hong Kong and therefore it is most important for us to use the Chinese written language in communicating with the public, more important indeed than to use English.

I am satisfied with the progress that has been made in Parks, Recreations and Amenities, but it is a hard won progress that has been made. It is just like hitting your head against a brick wall and making a small gap in it, and this is what so depresses me about bureaucratic government. The individuals that make up the Government are, by and large, very good fellows and yet the thing that they make up, the Bureaucratic Government, is indeed like a brick wall that, in all ways, you have to hit your head again and again to get anything done, and often it makes one's head very sore. (Laughter).

I should like in passing to say something about advertisements. I see that the paragraph is numbered 13 (perhaps very appropriately) and it is to define the Council's future policy, etc. Mr. Chairman, the Council has been defining its future policy for too many years and appropriate bye-laws have not yet been enacted. Do I smell vested interests or perhaps the contrary i.e. again, intense bureaucracy, of which we ourselves are a part. I would urge those members of this Council who specialize in advertisements to complete this object this year.

I now turn to hawkers. The Hawker Select Committee has spent a considerable time over paragraph 15 of the Statement of Aims. Indeed, as now drafted with 10 sub-sections, it is almost a code in itself. The 10th refers to the 10 years plan which requires the co-operation of other departments. Therefore, unfortunately, even the outline cannot yet be stated although members have had the outline already in Committee of the Whole. I myself wholly support this plan and feel that if it goes through, it has a real chance of not only bringing order out of chaos, but being fair to the existing hawkers and to the general public. Hawkers exist because there is a real need to purchase what they are selling. I have in the past been criticized for saying things that can be taken as derogatory of the Hawker Control Force - all the things that I have said I stand by. The Hawker Control Force is the creation of this Council and if this Council cannot maintain the highest standard of integrity in the Force, then it is a disgrace to this Council, and the Force itself needs to be disbanded. Having said this, I am not advocating that the Force be disbanded and, with a few exceptions, this year, in my opinion, has been a year in which we can be justly proud of the work the Force is doing, even though it is well under establishment and its rates of pay and privileges are well inferior to the Police Force. I think that the hawkers themselves are beginning to realize that in a bazaar controlled by the Hawker Control Force, there is no need to expand unduly to do business, as every hawker can do business in his 4 x 3 site, whereas formerly in uncontrolled markets the hawkers who had influence and expanded to about 20 × 20 had all the business, to the detriment of their fellow hawkers in the area, who obviously then tried to use the same tactics to compete. Without the Hawker Control Force, all the back-streets of Hong Kong would have become shanty towns, no fire engine could have possibly got through, and if and when there is a fire, the loss of life would be terrible. But the Hawker Control Force needs to be expanded, so as to take charge, at least, of all hawker bazaars. In one area of the Island, the Hawker Control Force is in charge of one bazaar and 200 yards down the road is another bazaar which is not a Hawker Control Force bazaar. In fairness to the hawkers, I must say that they themselves are learning to maintain their own discipline. In the case that I am referring to, the uncontrolled bazaar has little more encroachment on the 4 x 3 space than the controlled bazaar. If this is a symptom of the changing conditions of Hong Kong, then the Hawker Control Force can be more widely distributed and yet be as effective. I repeat again, the main object of the Hawker Control Force is to

Page 279

f279

330

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

331