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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

literally unofficial "bazaars" of cooked food stall hawkers who do a roaring trade, completely uncontrolled because they are completely unlicensed.

The considerations which led to a discontinuance of new cooked food stall licences 10 years ago do not apply again today. Then there was a reasonable hope that the cooked food stalls could be superceded, particularly by the economy and other canteens and restaurants. Then the resettlement estates were in their infancy, now they house more than a million people, and as I said there are big illegal cooked food stalls bazaars therein. Then even industry was not so much a life line of Hong Kong's economy as it is now and I suspect that there was a hope that if we did stop more cooked food stall licences, the factories would build their own canteens, which by and large they have not done. But looking with hind sight on 10 years ago, was enough information gathered before we took this fairly drastic step of stopping new cooked food stall licences? I am not blaming any one. Investigations cost a lot of money as the Transport Investigations have shown, but if we really are to control the hawker problem, investigations are very neces- sary, because the hawkers by and large sell what the man in the street wants to buy. Even more so when there is no other similar place in which he can obtain what he wants, and I repeat that a million people patronise cooked food stalls both legal and in many cases illegal, and they do not think that restaurants offer a satisfactory alternative. My Motion therefore is a Motion to cut out red-tape, to resolve as the Urban Council who have the onerous task of providing for hawker legislation, that we appreciate the need for hawkers of cooked food in Hong Kong; then the Hawker Policy Select Committee, having that clearly as an aim to work to, can get down to working out the practical details, I beg to move.

(Dr. Denny M. H. HUANG left the meeting at this point).

MRS. ELLIOTT:-Mr. Chairman, I beg to second.

Like many other policies in Hong Kong that are based on practice in the United Kingdom rather than on the needs of the local people, the policy of restricting cooked food licences to hawkers is indefensible.

While the original idea was commendable and our medical fraternity no doubt meant well in refusing to tolerate cooked food stalls for reasons of hygiene, they should, nevertheless be realistic and con- sider:

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whether food-stalls are in fact such a serious danger to health as we have been led to believe;

whether they have any means of enforcing this restriction; and whether it is desirable in an economy like this to attempt to

do so.

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Food is always a potential danger, especially in a hot climate, and many intestinal disorders may result from eating either cooked or, more particularly, uncooked food. I have myself experienced intestinal dis- orders from dining in restaurants that are sanctified by the U.S.D. permit. I have experienced disorders from eating food in private houses for that matter. I am told, in fact, that the outbreak of cholera several years ago was traced to a restaurant.

It is not indeed my purpose to discredit restaurants, but to show that even in the best-ordered society, and even in the most U.S.D.- inspected restaurant, the germs of disease may escape the sharp eye of a health inspector. However, a cooked-food stall has one advantage over a restaurant, in that the customer can SEE the food being cooked. Are food-stalls in truth the danger to health that we have been led to believe? I once heard a health inspector say that he bought his favourite dish from an unlicensed cooked-food stall. He obviously had little faith in the policy of his department, and a lot of faith in cooked food stalls.

Cooked food licences are restricted, but can it be argued that this restriction has in any way controlled outbreaks of disease? Can it be said to have controlled the cooked-food hawker business? To be honest one must admit that the restrictive policy is totally ineffective and cooked food stalls operate illegally throughout the Colony.

The fact of the matter is that cooked food from hawker stalls is popular with the workers, and they form the vast majority of the people. It has been estimated that a million people every day eat from cooked food stalls.

It is said that the Government's policy in restricting cooked food licences was to force people to eat at restaurants, for hygienic reasons, of course. But if people are to eat at restaurants they will need higher wages, and no attempt has been made to fix a minimum wage. As long as wages remain low, workers will be forced to eat in the cheapest possible way. Their lunch break is too short to go home, even if they could afford to pay the bus fares to go home. Many factories do not provide canteens. Many children have to eat a snack from a stall because both parents must work.

Whichever way we look at it, food stalls are a MUST, part of our workers' way of life. By trying to enforce restrictions we are only forcing many people to break the law, adding to the anxiety of the stall-holders, and making the workers angry and frustrated. Moreover, wherever there are unreasonable laws, there are corrupt methods of breaking them. How else could so many thousands of cooked food stalls exist but by corrupt means? This method allows them to set