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people on this issue. For this shortsightedness I hold the Chairman and members of that committee responsible.
Someone recently said that this Council is only another elite body of people. This situation will continue and the White Paper will change nothing, as it does not touch on the subject of the franchise. And I have come to the conclusion, after all these years of uninterrupted service on this Council, that I can support no changes that do not begin with a fully elected Council and with every adult a voter. Without this, democracy does not exist and I will have none of it. I remain on this Council only to struggle for that one purpose, and at the same time to seek justice for the man-in-the-street, who at present is just the pawn in the Government's game of make-believe; the man-in-the-street who is only an unknown stranger to most Members of this Council.
Some Members of this Council dream of getting jurisdiction in Education, Social Welfare and other matters of local concern. Yet I have found more kindness and understanding of the people in individuals in the Government Departments than I have found in some Members of this Council. I would not like to see the poor and the handicapped left to the unbending harshness of some of those sitting around this table: some of them in their dealings with the blind have already proved what mercy the poor could expect from them.
I would now like to mention one or two points that have influenced me to abstain from voting in favour of today's Motion.
The first is HOUSING. How long are we going to include in our aims that we will press for more space for overcrowded families in the older estates, yet remain totally ignorant of the fact that now the minimum space of 24 square feet per adult person has become the maximum, while the real minimum has been reduced to 10 or 12 square feet, with half that for a child, and still there is no hope of more space? If the Councillors know this, how is it that they never speak out about it, or make any demands?
I have heard no one mention the dreadful conditions in which people live in the Government resite areas, without proper water and toilet facilities, without electricity, and without hope in their flimsy huts when typhoons hit the colony.
Our housing needs are more acute than ever, and these include not only the poor but the lower and upper middle class. Today one has to be in the super-scale salary grade to be able to rent a house fit for a family to live in, in the private sector.
In the past we have decided to give more and more resettlement units for the resettlement of social welfare cases; yet no one seems concerned that in these first seven months of the present financial year, the allocation to compassionate cases has not even begun.
In the statement of aims on HAWKERS, I see attempts by the Urban Services Department to place all power into the hands of the officials of that department. This would not really matter if the policies were always reasonable, and if the department carried out the policies impartially, but it does not. It will evict a legal hawker but tolerate a dozen illegal ones in his place. This department will strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
I recall reading that a similar situation existed early in this century when our predecessors, the Sanitary Board, resigned on the grounds that their powers had been usurped by corrupt Government officials. The only difference between them and us is that the members of the Sanitary Board did resign, and they demanded an enquiry. We on this Council not only do not demand an enquiry, but some of us actually shut our eyes to malpractices and deny that they exist, though all the colony knows the truth. We are more interested in reviewing policies to make them harsher for the people, than in rooting out corruption that plays havoc with every policy.
Leaving the unhappy affairs of the Council, I should like to turn to other matters that worry the community, and are also my concern.
The main one is the RISING COST OF LIVING.
As the Governor, Sir David Trench, said goodbye on 19th October, he had the effrontery to reply (according to reports) in answer to a question whether he would return to Hong Kong: "It's an awfully long way—and rather expensive." Yet it was his own Government that forced up the cost of living by raising land premia, by failing to control the rents of business premises, and by permitting the monopolies to squeeze higher profits. His Government gave away over $5 million of the people's hard-earned money to an incompetent bus company to boost up the shareholders' profits; his Government made a donation of multi-million dollars to the crippled economy of Britain under the name of defence costs. But for what in Heaven's name does Hong Kong need a defence, and even if it did, what or whom could it defend? On a similar occasion in 1966, a spokesman for the army inadvertently admitted that the defences of Hong Kong could only hold out long enough to allow the Europeans to escape in case of invasion! And for this high ideal the Hong Kong people are asked to pay! No wonder in some quarters we are beginning to hear the two centuries' old cry: "No taxation without representation!"
So the people of Hong Kong are expected to accept without a murmur what comes to them. Lower-paid Government servants are called upon to sacrifice some of their salary to help finance more
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people on this issue. For this shortsightedness I hold the Chairman and members of that committee responsible.
Someone recently said that this Council is only another elite body of people. This situation will continue and the White Paper will change nothing, as it does not touch on the subject of the franchise. And I have come to the conclusion, after all these years of uninter- rupted service on this Council, that I can support no changes that do not BEGIN with a fully elected Council and with every adult a voter. Without this, democracy does not exist and I will have none of it. I remain on this Council only to struggle for that one purpose, and at the same time to seek justice for the man-in-the-street, who at present is just the pawn in the Government's game of make-believe; the man-in-the-street who is only an unknown stranger to most Mem- bers of this Council.
Some Members of this Council dream of getting jurisdiction in Education, Social Welfare and other matters of local concern. Yet I have found more kindness and understanding of the people in individ- uals in the Government Departments than I have found in some Members of this Council. I would not like to see the poor and the handicapped left to the unbending harshness of some of those sitting around this table: some of them in their dealings with the blind have already proved what mercy the poor could expect from them.
I would now like to mention one or two points that have influ- enced me to abstain from voting in favour of today's Motion.
The first is HOUSING. How long are we going to include in our aims that we will press for more space for overcrowded families in the older estates, yet remain totally ignorant of the fact that now the minimum space of 24 square feet per adult person has become the maximum, while the real minimum has been reduced to 10 or 12 square feet, with half that for a child, and still there is no hope of more space? If the Councillors know this, how is it that they never speak out about it, or make any demands?
I have heard no one mention the dreadful conditions in which people live in the Government resite areas, without proper water and toilet facilities, without electricity, and without hope in their flimsy huts when typhoons hit the colony.
Our housing needs are more acute than ever, and these include not only the poor but the lower and upper middle class. Today one has to be in the super-scale salary grade to be able to rent a house fit for a family to live in, in the private sector.
In the past we have decided to give more and more resettlement units for the resettlement of social welfare cases; yet no one seems
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
303
concerned that in these first seven months of the present financial year, the allocation to compassionate cases has not even begun.
In the statement of aims on HAWKERS, I see attempts by the Urban Services Department to place all power into the hands of the officials of that department. This would not really matter if the policies were always reasonable, and if the department carried out the policies impartially, but it does not. It will evict a legal hawker but tolerate a dozen illegal ones in his place. This department will strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.
I recall reading that a similar situation existed early in this cen- tury when our predecessors, the Sanitary Board, resigned on the grounds that their powers had been usurped by corrupt Government officials. The only difference between them and us is that the members of the Sanitary Board did resign, and they demanded an enquiry. We on this Council not only do not demand an enquiry, but some of us actually shut our eyes to malpractices and deny that they exist, though all the colony knows the truth. We are more interested in reviewing policies to make them harsher for the people, than in rooting out corruption that plays havoc with every policy.
Leaving the unhappy affairs of the Council, I should like to turn to other matters that worry the community, and are also my concern.
The main one is the RISING COST OF LIVING.
As the Governor, Sir David TRENCH, said goodbye on 19th October, he had the effrontery to reply (according to reports) in answer to a question whether he would return to Hong Kong: "It's an awfully long way--and rather expensive." Yet it was his own Government that forced up the cost of living by raising land premia, by failing to control the rents of business premises, and by permitting the monopolies to squeeze higher profits. His Government gave away over $5 million of the people's hard-earned money to an incompetent bus company to boost up the shareholders' profits; his Government made a donation of multi million dollars to the crippled economy of Britain under the name of defence costs. But for what in Heaven's name does Hong Kong need a defence, and even if it did, what or whom could it defend? On a similar occasion in 1966, a spokesman for the army inadvertently admitted that the defences of Hong Kong could only hold out long enough to allow the Europeans to escape in case of invasion! And for this high ideal the Hong Kong people are asked to pay! No wonder in some quarters we are beginning to hear the two centuries' old cry: "No taxation without representation!"
So the people of Hong Kong are expected to accept without a murmur what comes to them. Lower-paid Government servants are called upon to sacrifice some of their salary to help finance more
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