1967 — Page 239

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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

out of turn. If the question could be clarified I'll try to answer it more satisfactorily.

MRS. ELLIOTT:- Mr. Chairman, may I give a specific example? Is that permitted?

CHAIRMAN:- In clarification.

MRS. ELLIOTT:- In clarification. Well, this person is a widow, recently widowed with five children, her shop is going to be demolished, and she can't live in the area because all the other huts are being cleared; she just doesn't know what to do. Now I'm wondering if there is some emergency section to which this case could be sent?

DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE:- I don't think there is any emergency section, Sir, but on the face of it if these facts are presented to any case worker I would have thought he would immediately conclude that there are unusual circumstances about this and some urgent action is required. If this were not so I should be very sorry to believe it was true.

MRS. ELLIOTT:- May I clarify again Mr. Chairman. The case came to me on the 2nd December. I wrote a letter to the Resettlement Department on the 2nd December hoping to get a shop by normal means. That was impossible. It was referred to the Social Welfare Department and to date I have no answer-two months.

MR. BERNACCHI:- I should like to ask the Director of Social Welfare are the number of case workers sufficient to meet the needs of a total population of now about four million?

CHAIRMAN:- I am sorry, Sir, that is a new question and I must rule it out of order.

MR. BERNACCHI:- I asked the question that you have ruled out of order because of the supplementary. While I do appreciate the care taken by the Director of Social Welfare's case workers I should like to bring to the Director of Social Welfare's attention that several of the cases from my own Ward are taking two or more months to clear with his Department.

MRS. ELLIOTT:- Mr. Chairman, may I thank the Director and assure him that I had in mind what Mr. BERNACCHI asked but I knew we'd be ruled out of order. But I am not blaming the Social Welfare Department if they are short of staff. But something should be done about it and I hope the Director will investigate. May I ask if he will?

DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL WELFARE:- The assurance which I gave Mrs. ELLIOTT through you, Sir, was that if there are apparent excessive delays, if I could have the details I would be glad to find out what the specific reasons are which are holding things up, and further consider whether there is something which I can do to accelerate matters.

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(4) MRS. E. ELLIOTT asked the following question:-

(a) When this Council made a new policy not to offer shop resettlement to pig-breeders on clearance, is it correct that the reason given was that pig-breeding was illegal, and on principle it was wrong to offer compensation for an illegal occupation?

(b) Was it understood that this same principle should be applied to legal pig-breeders whose livelihood depends on pig-breeding in areas where this occupation is permitted?

THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:

This question relates to a change of policy introduced in 1965 whereby pig-breeders ceased to be eligible for shops in resettlement estates when their pigsties were cleared from land required for development.

The short answer to the first part of the question is that the illegality or otherwise of pig-breeding was merely an incidental factor in determining the change of policy, and there were other and more cogent reasons for it. I have re-examined the committee papers and minutes of the meetings of the Resettlement Policy Select Committee when the subject was exhaustively discussed in September and November 1964. At the former meeting, one member commented that "pig-breeders in the urban area were illegal". This statement, if correctly recorded, was perhaps an over-simplification of the position. In fact, under regulation 3 of the Public Health (Animals and Birds) (Keeping of Cattle, Swine, Sheep and Goats) Regulations made under Chapter 139 of the Laws of Hong Kong, no person may keep pigs except under and in accordance with a licence from the Director of Agriculture and Fisheries. In practice, so far as the urban areas are concerned, the Director issues licences only in respect of pig-keeping in the more rural parts of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island. I understand that, in 1967, there were 88 such licences in force in Kowloon and 260 on Hong Kong Island.

The main reasons why the Resettlement Policy Select Committee recommended that cultivators as well as pig-breeders should no longer be allocated shops in resettlement estates were:-

(1) there were at that time over 1,300 such people on the waiting list for shops;

(2) nearly all the shops becoming available were needed for shopkeepers from planned clearances of squatter and cottage areas;

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