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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Anyone who says that this cut-back in education is due to economic problems should look at the whole picture. We are told that the Defence Force is for internal security, and that to maintain that security by force, we are to pay what would provide all the education we need. Education for our children is surely the best means of internal security, and lack of it the surest cause of crime and unrest.
I have come to the conclusion that the British Government has once more become a colony-squeezing body, and what it can no longer squeeze from us in budget balances it is now squeezing from us in defence payments. This colony is still a colony, and it is still being exploited by Britain, to the loss of our children's education and the housing of our poorest workers.
Which brings me to the subject of housing. Again, in 1972, the Governor said (and I quote): "It is my conclusion that the inadequacy and scarcity of housing and all that this implies, and the harsh situations that result from it, is one of the major and most constant sources of friction and unhappiness between the Government and the population. It offends alike our humanity, our civic pride, and our political good sense."
Has the Governor's conclusion changed, that our housing programme has developed more slowly rather than faster since that time? According to information I received from Government quarters, it was never the Government's intention to carry out the Governor's promises. We therefore continue to "offend ... humanity, civic pride and political good sense.", by leaving the people in worse conditions than those laid down for pig-breeding, while those who have waited for five years are as far from reaching the top of the housing waiting-list as they were in 1972. Moreover, the purpose of the new Housing Authority, as stated recently by the Secretary for Housing, is to make money. The result is that when an applicant is offered housing which he has waited six or seven years for, he has to refuse because the rent is set at half his salary. If he asks for cheaper housing, he is told to go on another waiting-list. How can this be called housing for poor people, when it is precisely the poorest people who cannot afford to pay for it? When public housing costs more than the poor can afford, it is no longer public housing, but sheer exploitation.
The economic slump has been made the excuse for exploitation of every kind, by the utilities, by the Government, and by the industrialists; the only people who have suffered anything from the slump have been those at the bottom end of the scale who are dispensable. If that attitude is going to contribute to the fight crime campaign, it must be the first time in history that such results accrued.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
If I could make a New Year wish for Hong Kong, it would include a stepping-up of school buildings or the conversion of buildings for use as secondary schools for post-primary children, whose human right it is to receive education. No one should have the effrontery to deprive any child of that right, and if the Hong Kong Government is not going to deal with it, this should be a matter for the United Nations to deal with.
I should also wish for a better legal system, since the bodies concerned with law, the Police, the Legal Department and the Judiciary, are able to give us anything but justice: the courts have now become a place of fear for the innocent and of hope for the guilty. I should like to see justice for all who are cheated, whether at the low level of hawking or at the high level of the stock-exchange. I should like to see all the possessions of corrupt persons, European as well as Chinese, confiscated, with or without jail sentences. Jail is too secure for corrupt persons, and they should be sent with empty pockets into the hostile world to earn an honest living as the rest of us have to do.
I know it is hopeless to make such wish when we are ruled by people who are part and parcel of this corrupt and exploitive system. Nevertheless, nothing less will satisfy me.
And now, Mr. Chairman, this motion on which we are voting touches little in the lives of the majority of the people of Hong Kong, but for what it is worth, I support it.
MR. H. M. G. FORSGATE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, this Annual Debate gives the Chairmen of Select Committees the opportunity to expound on the work of their Committees during the past year, and to enlarge on their aspirations for the coming year.
As Chairman of the City Hall and Entertainments Select Committee, I intend to report upon its cultural activities, leaving the report on the Entertainments side of our work to the very competent Chairman of that Sub-Committee, Mr. F. K. Hu.
City Hall Cultural Activities
The enthusiastic public response to the cultural presentation series organized under the aegis of the City Hall and Entertainments Select Committee has been its dynamism for growth and venture into new grounds:
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in its second professional season, quickly expanded its activities to encompass the schools in its
Page 101 of 154
169
168
Page 101 of 154
169
168
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Anyone who says that this cut-back in education is due to economic problems should look at the whole picture. We are told that the Defence Force is for internal security, and that to maintain that security by force, we are to pay what would provide all the education we need. Education for our children is surely the best means of internal security, and lack of it the surest cause of crime and unrest.
I have come to the conclusion that the British Government has once more become a colony-squeezing body, and what it can no longer squeeze from us in budget balances it is now squeezing from us in defence payments. This colony is still a colony, and it is still being exploited by Britain, to the loss of our children's education and the housing of our poorest workers.
Which brings me to the subject of housing. Again, in 1972, the Governor said (and I quote): "It is my conclusion that the inadequacy and scarcity of housing and all that this implies, and the harsh situations that result from it, is one of the major and most constant sources of friction and unhappiness between the Government and the population. It offends alike our humanity, our civic pride, and our political good sense."
Has the Governor's conclusion changed, that our housing pro- gramme has developed more slowly rather than faster since that time? According to information I received from Government quarters, it was never the Government's intention to carry out the Governor's promises. We therefore continue to "offend . . . humanity, civic pride and political good sense.", by leaving the people in worse conditions than those laid down for pig-breeding, while those who have waited for five years are as far from reaching the top of the housing waiting-list as they were in 1972. Moreover, the purpose of the new Housing Authority, as stated recently by the Secretary for Housing, is to make money. The result is that when an applicant is offered housing which he has waited six or seven years for, he has to refuse because the rent is set at half his salary. If he asks for cheaper housing, he is told to go on another waiting-list. How can this be called housing for poor people, when it is precisely the poorest people who cannot afford to pay for it? When public housing costs more than the poor can afford, it is no longer public housing, but sheer exploitation.
The economic slump has been made the excuse for exploitation of every kind, by the utilities, by the Government, and by the indus- trialists; the only people who have suffered anything from the slump have been those at the bottom end of the scale who are dispensable. If that attitude is going to contribute to the fight crime campaign, it must be the first time in history that such results accrued.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
If I could make a New Year wish for Hong Kong, it would include a stepping-up of school buildings or the conversion of buildings for use as secondary schools for post-primary children, whose human right it is to receive education. No one should have the effrontery to deprive any child of that right, and if the Hong Kong Government is not going to deal with it, this should be a matter for the United Nations to deal with.
I should also wish for a better legal system, since the bodies con- cerned with law, the Police, the Legal Department and the Judiciary, are able to give us anything but justice: the courts have now become a place of fear for the innocent and of hope for the guilty. I should like to see justice for all who are cheated, whether at the low level of hawking or at the high level of the stock-exchange. I should like to see all the possessions of corrupt persons, European as well as Chinese, confiscated, with or without jail sentences. Jail is too secure for corrupt persons, and they should be sent with empty pockets into the hostile world to earn an honest living as the rest of us have to do.
I know it is hopeless to make such wish when we are ruled by people who are part and parcel of this corrupt and exploitive system. Nevertheless, nothing less will satisfy me.
And now, Mr. Chairman, this motion on which we are voting touches little in the lives of the majority of the people of Hong Kong, but for what it is worth, I support it.
MR. H. M. G. FORSGATE (in English):-Mr. Chairman, this Annual Debate gives the Chairmen of Select Committees the oppor- tunity to expound on the work of their Committees during the past year, and to enlarge on their aspirations for the coming year.
As Chairman of the City Hall and Entertainments Select Com- mittee, I intend to report upon its cultural activities, leaving the report on the Entertainments side of our work to the very competent Chairman of that Sub-Committee, Mr. F. K. Hu.
City Hall Cultural Activities
The enthusiastic public response to the cultural presentation series organized under the aegis of the City Hall and Entertainments Select Committee has been its dynanism for growth and venture into new grounds:
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in its second professional season, quickly expanded its activities to encompass the schools in its
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