HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
As I was preparing this speech, the newspapers talked of the 56th murder this year, and it is quite likely that by now my figure is out of date. Other statistics record that in spite of all the commendable efforts of the police, from January to October there were 1,950 cases of armed robbery, and 8,346 cases of theft, making a total of 10,296 incidents of this kind in all, an average of 34 a day, not counting those that were not reported to the police. The murders involved mostly young people brutally assaulted by other young people in gang warfare of the sort completely unfamiliar to Hong Kong until comparatively recent years. His Excellency the Governor in his speech on October 1 rightly voiced the community's dismay and alarm at this upsurge of such senseless brutality. It is my view that if the economic situation were not truly desperate for the masses concealed behind the walls of these fortresses of under-privileged standards, there would not be this terrible total of deaths and robberies, with their trail of private sorrow and misery. Theft is rarely the outcome of caprice, and nearly always the result of need. When you add to that the bitterness of being priced out of even the right to vegetables, the claustrophobia of an entire family in a single room, the noise that follows you like a shadow from morning to night, you have all the pressure that is necessary for a moral breakdown.
I have been pleased to note the interest of the Government in the last few years in the provision of a summer programme for youth. There is no doubt that these programmes have been very successful, and that children from the poorer and humbler homes have been spared days in the streets, where invitations to crime lurk, by imaginative and ingenious distractions combining both entertainment and education. But, my point is, is summer alone worthy of consideration? Are there no holidays in the winter as well? Don't schools break up for at least two weeks during Christmas and the Lunar New Year, to say nothing of other lengthy breaks such as at Easter? We operate as if summer alone matters, as if temptations do not assail the young when they have nothing to do for days on end in December, and again in February. I feel that with the limited natural distractions of winter, when it is too cold for many activities, the danger of entrapment into vice is particularly present. After all, ballrooms and bars are warm. And so are the so-called dancing "schools", and mahjong "schools". These schools are already so numerous, so popular, enrolment is so easy, and graduation so guaranteed, that I am told a move is afoot to create some form of centralization. There is probably no truth in the report that when all these schools finally combine into one, we shall have our third university.
A number of Legislative Councillors three weeks ago urged the Government to take another look at the law governing the employment of young persons so as to enable some of them to work. I entirely agree that legislation should be flexible on this matter. Primary education is possible only up to the age of 12, and between 12 and 14, hundreds of young people have neither a school to go to nor a place to work in. We must take account of the children who fail in the entrance examination to secondary schools, the drop-outs, and the children from poor families who are denied the right to government- and-aided school places, and whose parents cannot afford the fees charged in expensive private schools. To abandon them to their own resources is to encourage them to become criminals. It is another symptom of the economic muddle into which the Colony appears to be plunging. Why is it not possible to permit these children to work a few hours a day in a safe industry to enable them to earn the money which they can later employ as tuition fees? Is it not better that they be kept busy instead of vicious?
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
I had not intended this year to talk about Urban Council reform, because it is a subject on which the views of the unofficial members are well known. But the Governor has chosen to express himself on the issue, and we have recently met with Mr. Anthony ROYLE, and so I think it is not amiss to take the matter up briefly. I would just like to repeat, Mr. Chairman, that we should not be kept waiting for ever to be told precisely what the Government has in mind in relation to this Council. Again and again when the issue has been brought up we have been mollified with generalities and platitudes intended to gloss over continuing delay. I remember reading in the papers the other day that when menial workers of the Urban Services Department asked for a change in their khaki uniform, the Department replied that the request was valid, because the material was heavy and unsuitable. Yet nothing was done. When the workers brought up the matter again after an interval, wanting to know why the change had not been effected, the reply was that stocks of the material were so large no change could be introduced until they had run out. I wonder if this is also in effect what we are being told--that no change will be introduced until our patience has run out.
Before I conclude, Sir, I cannot help referring to the procrastination of the Government on issues of considerable public importance. A Chinese newspaper said the other day--may I (Mr. Rafeek quoted in Chinese) it meant in English that sometimes it was useful for the Government to delay action, and sometimes a delay was not wise but delay in itself should not be regarded as a cure-all for everything. With this view, I entirely agree. Allow me to draw your attention to some of the delays now plaguing us. There is delay in the publication of the report on the proposed underground system, delay in the provision of a long-promised larger City Museum and Art Gallery, delay in the completion of flyovers and a large programme of public works, delay in the multi-purpose sports hall that was mentioned...
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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
As I was preparing this speech, the newspapers talked of the 56th murder this year, and it is quite likely that by now my figure is out of date. Other statistics record that in spite of all the commend- able efforts of the police, from January to October there were 1,950 cases of armed robbery, and 8,346 cases of theft, making a total of 10,296 incidents of this kind in all, an average of 34 a day, not counting those that were not reported to the police. The murders in- volved mostly young people brutally assaulted by other young people in gang warfare of the sort completely unfamiliar to Hong Kong until comparatively recent years. His Excellency the Governor in his speech on October 1 rightly voiced the community's dismay and alarm at this upsurge of such senseless brutality. It is my view that if the economic situation were not truly desperate for the masses concealed behind the walls of these fortresses of under-privileged standards, there would not be this terrible total of deaths and robberies, with their trail of private sorrow and misery. Theft is rarely the outcome of caprice, and nearly always the result of need. When you add to that the bitterness of being priced out of even the right to vegetables, the claustrophobia of an entire family in a single room, the noise that follows you like a shadow from morning to night, you have all the pressure that is necessary for a moral breakdown.
I have been pleased to note the interest of the Government in the last few years in the provision of a summer programme for youth. There is no doubt that these programmes have been very successful, and that children from the poorer and humbler homes have been spared days in the streets, where invitations to crime lurk, by imaginative and ingenious distractions combining both entertainment and education, But, my point is, is summer alone worthy of consideration? Are there
no holidays in the winter as well? Don't schools break up for at least two weeks during Christmas and the Lunar New Year, to say nothing of other lengthy breaks such as at Easter? We operate as if summer alone matters, as if temptations do not assail the young when they have nothing to do for days on end in December, and again in February. I feel that with the limited natural distractions of winter, when it is too cold for many activities, the danger of entrapment into vice is particularly present. After all, ballrooms and bars are warm. And so are the so-called dancing "schools", and mahjong "schools". These schools are already so numerous, so popular, enrol- ment is so easy, and graduation so guaranteed, that I am told a move is afoot to create some form of centralization. There is probably no truth in the report that when all these schools finally combine into one, we shall have our third university.
A number of Legislative Councillors three weeks ago urged the Government to take another look at the law governing the employment of young persons so as to enable some of them to work. I entirely
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
271
agree that legislation should be flexible on this matter. Primary education is possible only up to the age of 12, and between 12 and 14, hundreds of young people have neither a school to go to nor a place to work in. We must take account of the children who fail in the entrance examination to secondary schools, the drop-outs, and the children from poor families who are denied the right to government- and-aided school places, and whose parents cannot afford the fees charged in expensive private schools. To abandon them to their own resources is to encourage them to become criminals. It is another symptom of the economic muddle into which the Colony appears to be plunging. Why is it not possible to permit these children to work a few hours a day in a safe industry to enable them to earn the money which they can later employ as tuition fees? Is it not better that they be kept busy instead of vicious?
I had not intended this year to talk about Urban Council reform, because it is a subject on which the views of the unofficial members are well known. But the Governor has chosen to express himself on the issue, and we have recently met with Mr. Anthony ROYLE, and so I think it is not amiss to take the matter up briefly. I would just like to repeat, Mr. Chairman, that we should not be kept waiting for ever to be told precisely what the Government has in mind in relation to this Council. Again and again when the issue has been brought up we have been mollified with generalities and platitudes intended to gloss over continuing delay. I remember reading in the papers the other day that when menial workers of the Urban Services Department asked for a change in their khaki uniform, the Department replied that the request was valid, because the material was heavy and unsuitable. Yet nothing was done. When the workers brought up the matter again after an interval, wanting to know why the change had not been effected, the reply was that stocks of the material were so large no change could be introduced until they had run out. I wonder if this is also in effect what we are being told--that no change will be introduced until our patience has run out.
Before I conclude, Sir, I cannot help referring to the procrastination of the Government on issues of considerable public importance. A Chinese newspaper said the other day-may I (Mr. Rafeek quoted in Chinese) it meant in English that sometimes it was useful for the Government to delay action, and sometimes a delay was not wise but delay in itself should not be regarded as a cure-all for every- thing. With this view, I entirely agree. Allow me to draw your attention to some of the delays now plaguing us. There is delay in the publication of the report on the proposed underground system, delay in the provision of a long-promised larger City Museum and Art Gallery, delay in the completion of flyovers and a large programme of public works, delay in the multi-purpose sports hall that was mention
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