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legitimately serve the needs of the public in conditions, at least pro- viding the minimum health protection, instead of, as now, having to tolerate unlicensed hawkers selling fresh meat, partly because of the inadequacy of proper markets to serve the needs of a population of over four million. Which means the hawkers themselves have to submit to any form of bribery or corruption that they may be subjected to, because they know, at present, they cannot legalize themselves, however earnestly they desire to be law-abiding citizens.

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

Before rising in support of the Motion of Mr. BERNACCHI, I went to one of the largest markets and its adjacent bazaar to check the actual position on the ground.

In the bazaar I saw the meat stalls were identical to those in the market, and found them not less clean: in both there was an absence of flies; in both the meat looked the same; in both there was a covering roof.

The only difference between these meat stalls was that one kind was legal and the other illegal. Although the bazaar was supposed to be controlled by the Hawker Control Force, none of these gentlement were in sight, and the layout of the illegal meat stalls indicated that their owners were not afraid of any official visitor.

The same situation with regard to fresh meat stalls can be found in most areas of the Colony, especially in resettlement areas. Now, I can quite understand the value of prohibiting the sale of meat by hawkers in the vicinity of meat shops and meat markets, but can we claim that there are meat shops and markets in every area where hawkers sell other kinds of fresh food such as vegetables? Do we expect people who live in areas where there are no meat shops or markets to refrain from eating meat? Is it not common-sense that if there are hawker areas without legal stalls, the customers will be willing to buy what they need from illegal stalls? Where there is a demand, is there not also sure to be a supply, legal or illegal?

I quite agree that when the planned markets are completed, we may need to re-assess the need for other meat hawkers, but that is looking many years ahead; in the meantime, are we going to prohibit something, knowing perfectly well that it will still flourish illegally? Are we willingly going to give an opportunity for further corruption? A meat stall owner told me that he had to pay $20 a week to avoid being summonsed; while a friend told me that she had watched the meat hawkers paying $5 a day for protection to allow them to sell If we today deny the need for meat hawkers, do we honestly believe that that is going to stop the hawking of meat? By voting

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against this Motion, would we not be closing our eyes to these corrupt practices, and at the same time allowing the present illegal situation

to go unchecked?

When opponents of legalization talk about the danger of flies in these illegal meat stalls, can they honestly say that they have seen flies go to the illegal stalls but not to the legal shops and markets? Is anyone naive enough to believe that flies are so discriminating?

Please notice that I am not suggesting that every Tom, Dick or Harry should be allowed to run into the street with a dirty basket of bad meat, as some seen to imagine. In fact, my purpose is the reverse it is to prevent this laissez-faire sale of meat and to introduce some measure of cleanliness. As the Motion says: "for the Hawker Policy Select Committee. to work out the practical details". If meat hawking is provided for in all hawker areas where at present there are only illegal hawkers, we shall have done our best to safe- guard hygiene and avoid corrupt practices. If we fail to acknowledge this need, we are dreaming: it can never be stamped out by prohibiting it. I believe that if something cannot be stamped out because the need is so great, the only sensible alternative is to legalize it so that at least there is some check on it. But please notice that I am talking about legitimate needs, and not a licence for vice.

Mr. Chairman, most of us find it hard to change our minds: it is particularly hard to change our mind on policies that we have defended with old clichés, repeated often enough for us to accept them. May I ask that my colleagues will not just base their opinions on theories dictated from behind a desk, or quoted from a book of rules; but may I ask that they will face the facts and ask themselves whether or not there is a need for meat hawkers in hawker areas where at present there are none legal, but where nevertheless there are hundreds plying their trade illegally and corruptly.

If my colleagues will do this, I am sure they will agree that the Motion is a practical one, and that they will support it.

MR. CHEONG-LEEN:-Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak on the Motion by Mr. BERNACCHI with a sense of regret that, in the way it has been worded, it should have been made at a time when the Urban Council and the Urban Services Department are working closely together to eradicate the last vestiges of cholera in Hong Kong.

We are not out of the woods yet, since the Director of Medical and Health Services stated on 27th July that cholera vibrios were still found in night-soil samples, and the public was urged to avoid food that could be a source of infection.

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