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advocating, without success, for many years, that is, the setting up of proper places for hawking. If we need roads for traffic and land for an underground railway, and for these there seems to be no shortage of land, how much more do we need land for hawker bazaars to supply the daily needs of our vast population. Shops in the heavily populated areas are inadequate even if rents were not prohibitive for the sale of daily commodities. I have yet to hear this Council make any strong request for land for markets and bazaars. Instead some dream of forcing hawkers from the streets and into factories. Hawkers are chased in an undignified manner round streets and lamp-posts, and arrests are often arranged by rota agreed between hawkers and police. How can respect for the authorities be maintained while this undignified daily chase continues, and while honest but old, sick and handicapped people trying to maintain an independent livelihood, are herded into courts and in some cases even imprisoned?

Quite apart from the social aspects, hawkers are needed, because without them our workers would need higher wages, and factories would have no quick market for their surplus goods.

And while the Council claims to be trying to reduce the number of hawkers, another Department, the Housing Authority, is creating more hawkers in its eagerness to grab money from tenders. One would imagine that the various departments would be only too glad to co-operate by directing hawkers from the older areas into the new bazaars in estates, but not so. Greed prevails, and the policy of reducing hawkers is forgotten by the Housing Authority, although some members of this Council sit on that Authority.

That brings me to my next subject, Housing.

Rents in new estates are at least double the costs, which costs include building, administration, and maintenance. Estates now are built for the more affluent workers, or for large families with several workers. Small families cannot afford public housing on new estates, and thus the purpose of public housing, not to say family planning, is defeated. The Housing Authority makes only vague and unfulfilled promises to the low-income workers, for whom housing ought to be the first priority.

A vast amount of public housing has been reserved for MTR and other business clearances. This means that estate tenants are shouldering the burden of compensation in the form of housing for families displaced by big business. No income checks are made on persons so housed, and many are groups of five adult workers, or even flat owners. These affluent families are happy to pay the rents

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in public housing, as they are about half the rents in private housing. But the families really in need and who cannot afford the high rents, are relegated to a waiting-list or put in the slums. MTR and business ventures should build their own estates at their own expense for persons

they displace.

Likewise, in the older estates, improved housing is offered only to those who can afford high rents, while the low-income workers are left to bring up their children in socially undesirable conditions.

The Housing Authority is wrongly named. It is now Hong Kong's biggest profit-making landlord, controlled by no landlord and tenant ordinances, but run by bureaucrats, landlords, and businessmen. The Housing Authority has shown clearly that it is not interested in housing lower income groups, but counts its successes in terms of profits. I therefore call upon the Government to destroy this monster it has set up with the name "Housing Authority", and in its place set up a new and democratic body including elected representatives of the people, and tenant representatives, so that the Housing Authority will be a meeting of Government officials and people, seeking the best interests of both.

I think today I must say a few words about CORRUPTION, in view of recent developments in that field.

My reputation in the past was that of spokesman against corrup- tion, mainly in the police force. That was necessary at a time when the only so-called anti-corruption body was recruited from police ranks, and it was of vital importance that police corruption should be tackled first.

Now the picture has changed. We have the ICAC to deal with corruption, and let me hasten to add that the word "Independent" has little or no meaning. The ICAC never has been, and was never intended to be, an independent body. My sympathy lies with those officers of the ICAC who came to Hong Kong intending to do a good job, but have found themselves hamstrung in their efforts.

The Director of ICAC started his job by saying publicly that the vast majority of civil servants are honest. Having begun with this error, he built up his departmental action on the same erroneous basis. It has always been crystal clear that corruption was a method of Government here from top to bottom and from end to end. To imagine one could get away with taking legal action against only pockets of corruption here and there below the top level, with emphasis on lower-ranking police, was a fallacy that cannot be excused.