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order to encourage them to enter industry, they will have to be provided with on-the-job training and a reasonable wage until such time that they become skilled or even semi-skilled industrial workers with an income of between $500 - 600 per month.

As regards young hawkers, it is usually the young person who has not finished primary education who is attracted to the hawking trade. The better educated young people are definitely not interested in becoming hawkers. Therefore, one positive measure to attract young people away from hawking for a living will be for Government to expand educational opportunities, even to the point of introducing some form of compulsory primary education suitable to local requirements.

MR. SALES: -Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank Mr. CHEONG- LEEN for a very comprehensive reply to my question. When is it intended that the Hawker Select Committee as a body would propose to the Council that we urge the Government to introduce compulsory primary education for hawkers' children?

MR. CHEONG-LEEN: -Mr. Chairman, this subject I suppose could be discussed in detail at the meeting of the Standing Committee as a whole, but expressing a personal view, I think that we will probably have to be patient for a few months until such time as the Public Assistance Scheme is in operation, otherwise we might be causing a certain amount of hardship if Government should introduce compulsory primary education prematurely. But I for one am convinced that we must have compulsory primary education if we are to really get ahead, and one of these days have no young people becoming hawkers.

(11) MR. A. de O. SALES asked the following question:-

(a) As the grave hawker problem involves the widespread misuse of public roads, creating traffic, sanitation and other problems, will the Hawker Policy Select Committee press on with the construction of hawker bazaars in appropriate neighbourhoods? Has a time-table been drawn up for this purpose?

(b) Will the Select Committee study and implement the proposal to install meters or other suitable mechanical devices to control more effectively the allocation and use of such areas as may be set aside for hawkers to trade, particularly as the deployment of the limited Hawker Control Force alone has not proved successful?

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MR. HILTON CHEONG-LEEN, CHAIRMAN OF THE HAWKER POLICY SELECT COMMITTEE, replied as follows:

It is a primary task of the Urban Council Hawker Policy to establish off-street hawker bazaars wherever suitable and possible. However, progress is limited by the scarcity of suitable sites and the strongly competing demands for all available land, for example, for recreation areas, housing, factories, parking, etc. Because of these very real limitations, the planning of off-street hawker bazaars for all hawkers in the urban areas, which is the respon- sibility of the Urban Council, according to a time-table, is impractical and not feasible. Meantime, there is close co-ordination of effort between the Resettlement and Urban Services Departments on the one hand, and the City District Hawker Consultative Committees on the other hand in the continuous search for suitable hawker bazaar sites.

As regards the second part of the question, the Urban Services Department is studying the feasibility of the proposal to install meters to regulate hawking. When the feasibility study has been completed, it will be considered by the Hawker Policy Select Committee.

MR. SALES: -Mr. Chairman, why has it taken the Urban Services Department so long to start a feasibility study on the proposal to install meters to regulate hawking?

MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-1 understand, Mr. Chairman, that the Trans- port Department and the Public Works Department are also being consulted on this, and the Urban Services Department is awaiting certain technical information from these two other Government depart- ments so that it can complete its feasibility report for consideration by the Select Committee.

MR. SALES: -Mr. Chairman, it is several years since the proposal was first made. Was it not taken up at the time that it was put to the Council?

MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Perhaps that might have been the case, Mr. Chairman, but as Mr. SALES is fully aware, since six months ago the Policy Select Committee has prepared priority programme, and this programme is being fairly strictly adhered to and we are pretty sure that Mr. SALES' pet subject, which is having hawkers being given the privilege of putting coins into meters, will be considered just as soon as the feasibility report is prepared. I would ask Mr. SALES to be patient, it will not be lost in the wash.