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for such facilities. This Council several months ago passed a Motion that was approved in principle but was referred to the Hawker Policy Select Committee done? What has been done since then? Why has nothing been done to license cooked food bazaars in resettlement areas that have been in existence illegally for many years? Because there is a need, and where there is a need the people of Hong Kong meet that need whether they can do so illegally or legally, that is something this Council needs to face and not bury its head in the sand. I also agree with the suggestion that hawkers other than cooked food stall holders should be allowed to sell precooked and prepacked cooked food in disposable containers in the way suggested by Mr. Lo and Dr. BROWNE. As regard Dr. BROWNE'S disclosure that the advisor on air pollution has recommended bringing all aspects of air pollution under one authority, surely that authority should be the Urban Council not the Air Pollution Control Unit of the Labour Department which has enough on its plate on already for years to come.

Finally as regards Dr. BROWNE's nursing staff he says that no battle has been lost or won or even joined, the question which the nurses want the answer to is when are they going to get equal pay? That question has not been answered. The only answer that this Council has received is that it is still being carefully examined. Nurses and teachers are two of our most important women civil servants and in each case the Government is delaying its acknowledged policy of equal pay for equal work and I can say on this issue the Government is exhibiting a most vasalating policy and I call upon the Government to remedy the situation during the course of 1970.

I now come to the speech of the Secretary for Home Affairs. I thank him for his very clear clarification of the duties of the C.D.O. organization. It is really similar to the duties that I gave to this Council in my speech on last year's Annual Conventional Debate. They do not include the duties of Ombudsman, although I agree with Mr. Hu that when an Ombudsman is set up the C.D.O.s and indeed the Council's ward system will help him by referring individual cases to him. As regards my particular theme on fire works, has anybody, and by that I include the Secretary for Home Affairs, taken the trouble to really obtain the public views on this relatively important matter? I accept his frank reply that the reason now for continuing the ban is on the grounds of danger to life and limb with a widespread uncon- trolled letting off fireworks. I do not consider that Government would be criticized for itself breaking its own ban, the reason for the ban is in the words of Mr. HOLMES "the widespread uncontrolled letting off fireworks". Therefore if Government organized a controlled public display of fireworks at the time of the Lunar New Year and other suitable occasions, I am sure that would do much to relieve the under current of objections to the ban which goes to the very foundation of

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the traditional way in which these occasions have been celebrated by the Chinese for many thousands of years.

Turning to the Director of Social Welfare's speech the fact remains that in most other places in the British Commonwealth of Nations there is a provision by law that a certain small per centage of workmen in any big industrial concern must be for the physically or mentally handicapped person. I know that Mr. LOBO has in mind in particular the distressing position over finding reasonably well paid jobs for the blind in Hong Kong. The blind particularly can perform a good day's work and those dealing with them should not have the great difficulty that they have, in finding employment for them. Again in the provision of homes for the aged, presumably the 2,000 additional places required in the next five years is for a very limited number of old persons admitted on very strict selection. I myself would have preferred the Government to have worked on an estimate of at least 5,000 additional places during, let us say, the next 5 years and to have a five-year plan to provide an additional 1,000 places each year. Dr. HUANG may have over exaggerated in his comparison between us and Singapore but I think that the expenditure of less than 1% of our budget on the Social Welfare Department itself is an insult to the very hardworking people of Hong Kong, and I hope the Director of Social Welfare will continue to press strongly for a bigger budget for relief work. I agree, however, that public assistance is but one example of social security in its broader sense, and I agree that the public assistance programme should be continued as one limb of the overall scheme, but I also consider that the setting up of a Youth Department is a vital necessity and cannot be handled by a Colonial Secretariat Committee on youth and recreation.

Finally, I come to the fairly long speech of the Chairman and if I deal with it, as I shall, in a few lines it is not because it does not require careful attention, but that I have already to a large extent dealt with the subjects in my reply to the other speeches and also that generally he assures Members that the points raised by them will be looked into in Select Committee or in the appropriate quarters. He does devote a large amount of his speech to the Hawker problem. I can only say that I hope that a lot of words can be turned into actions on the ground that will in the end be better both for the public of Hong Kong and in the real interest of the hawkers themselves. In particular, of course, the Resettlement Policy Select Committee is interested in the new Public Works Department design for resettlement markets and hawker stalls.

As regards the lack of legislation to protect workers in Hong Kong, I note with pleasure that the Governor has in mind the draft legislation on a number of provisions that will make the conditions very