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is also a social and economic problem. It was so to start off. But it should be less so now. A generation has passed. And, the rising generation expects better performance and a realistic attitude of those in power.

Public assistance to the old and the infirm, the widow and the orphan, among hawkers, should be making an impact by now, as the Government gathers momentum in its acceptance of responsibility for the less fortunate members of our society.

Also, job training for the young and the able-bodied should be offered to all by the Government in a positive manner so as to attract them away from the rough and tumble of a hawker's life even with all its strong inducements of more money and free time, without discipline. Is there such a special training scheme? In any case, no licence, except in specified categories, should be issued to the young eventually, but only to the middle-aged and the elderly provided they are still capable of selling their wares themselves. Many hawkers dispose of their licences for profit or are intimidated into doing so.

Financial Implications

There is a general misconception of what the returns actually are from hawking. This misapprehension is sometimes wilfully foisted on the public to cloud the issue. But the genuine local man has few doubts on this score. For, he can see that many operations are fairly substantial enterprises, openly flouting all regulations as to size, location and sanitary requirements. Some have domestic accommodation and are even of two storeys. However, most are small street vendors in fixed pitches, still described as itinerant hawkers, but no longer func- tioning as such, if many ever did, and they should now be recognized accordingly, for their own good. There are no rents or taxes to pay, only a paltry fee, still quite unrelated to costs. Indeed, even now, the ratepayer subsidizes annually about $30m in direct costs and probably at least half as much again in excess cleansing and other charges. And, if the Council is to accede to a departmental request for more staff, another $30m would certainly have to be found, and perhaps even more, to do the job well. But how? From the Government by direct grant or from the ratepayer by raising the rate percentage?

Succession, Transfers and Old Trades

The failure to manage hawker affairs properly ever since the start has aggravated a situation which should have been contained, then progressively sorted out in a fair and humane way. The genuine

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smalltime hawkers would like it done themselves as any tidying up would be for their own direct benefit. The problem would have contracted all these many years had there been no succession or transfers on any pretext, and for which there can be no permanent justification.

Whatever the future may hold for hawking as a trade here, there will still be the newspaper vendor, the bootblack, the letter-writer, the fortune teller, the cobbler, the locksmith, the fruit and vegetable hawker, and perhaps others who ply traditional trades, without all of whom Hong Kong life would be less convenient to its citizens and colourful to its visitors. The Council has to uphold these time-honoured ways of earning a living.

Compassionate Cases

Compassionate cases were very few before. They were profes- sionally investigated by the Social Welfare Department and the Medical and Health Department. These two departments withdrew last year. Since then, numbers shot up sharply as a few Members took it upon themselves to make their own recommendations. The Council has now reiterated that hawking is a business and not a job-placement opportunity for the unfortunate people whom the Government should look after separately in an affluent society. Of course, it is known that com- passionate cases tend to sublet or otherwise pass on their licences, if they are not taken away by intimidation.

Fair Play

There is of course no cut-and-dried answer to Hong Kong's hawker situation unless we take a leaf from Singapore's book. It is an emotional human problem with grave political implications as well. It causes intolerable environmental conditions and also opens the question whether its uncontrolled proliferation is fair to the residents, shopkeepers and others in the areas where they set up their stalls and pitches without constraints. Any corrective measures must be gradual and not disrup- tive just as it must be fair and humane, clear and rational. There is an in-built ebb and flow of numbers and locations too, in affluence and adversity. But Members must be ready to act swiftly and decisively when opportunities offer in changing times, and not drift along in- effectually. Moreover, nothing is ever gained for the community by the old habit of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel-so pathetically the beginning and end of management in times now hopefully gone by.