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HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL

Once the optimum distribution is decided upon, a certain fixed percentage of the rate revenue should be ear-marked for the specific functions. This can only be changed after vigorous debate and discussions to accommodate changes in priority or other exogenous factors. The relevant functional select committee will have to meet any increases of costs and expansion of activities by one of three alternatives or a combination of the three. It can scale down its other activities, raise revenue from its fees and charges, or go to the public for an increase of rate percentage for its new activities. If the select committee decides to ask for an increase in rates for a new activity or to meet increased costs, this will be readily identifiable and the public at large can then judge whether the increased cost of the particular function is desirable. If the public vetoes the increase, the functional select committee will have to finance the increased cost by other means, either by raising secondary charges or to scale down its other present activities.

The system I have outlined is based on a Chinese traditional principle of financial management (by restricting expenditure to income) as well as the western concept of earmark taxation. The aim is to design a system to prevent the over expansion of an increasingly complicated government structure as well as to require the relevant select committees to be more cost conscious. In this period of worldwide inflation, the Council will be faced with the problem of increasing costs. Let us identify such an activity which generates the cost increase, before asking the public to pay more for such services. Next, I would like to discuss the employment of young girls in establish- ments under the Dutiable Commodities (Liquor) Regulations. The existing regulation permits girls of age fourteen to eighteen to work in premises operating under a liquor licence between 6.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. In view of the recent labour legislation raising the minimum age of employment from fourteen to fifteen by September 1980, the Dutiable Commodities (Liquor) Regulations obviously need to be revised accordingly.

In the process of revising the liquor regulations, I venture to suggest that the minimum age should be further reviewed, and raised to the age of eighteen. For girls younger to be employed in such places as bars and night- clubs is evidently undesirable morally and socially. Complaints from the police on the alarmingly rising trend for teenage girls being associated with vices in their employment in bars, some virtual vice dens, contribute a powerful testimony for my concern. The present regulations failed to account for the fact that vice-related activities can be conducted during the hours of 6.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. as well as other hours, once the bar serves as a medium. Consider a girl aged fifteen, who has just left school. How can she resist the temptation of a 'fat' salary when she has never received any salary before? Females of eighteen and above can be given the choice to do whatever they think best with their own lives. For girls below 18, it is unfair to permit them to be exposed to such a lure and expect them to resist it of their own free will and accord.

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Admittedly, such a ban of girls below 18 from bars, will mean the cessation

of the present employment of these girls in these establishments. However, this could hardly give rise to any genuine economic hardship since they could transfer to other lines of activities such as manufacturing and commerce where there is widespread and sustained labour shortage. In fact, it will make better economic sense if this limitation by age will serve to channel our young people, at an early age, into industry and other sectors which demand trained manpower. It is therefore strategical to encourage our youth to look to industry as the place they can acquire a skill and earn a decent and meaningful living. On one hand, Hong Kong relies on its industries and exports for its economic growth, not bars or night-clubs to substain our economic future. On the other hand, human resources is the only asset we can claim. We must conserve and utilize it in the best manner we could. There is now an euphoric discussion on diversification of our economy and in conjunction, industrial training and manpower planning as the supportive contingency. While the forum on the extension and improvement of education is going on, we need to be in continuing search of ways how our youths can be best brought up and prepared in their careers. I believe that preventing young girls below eighteen to work in licensed premises falls neatly in line with any macro manpower scheme, not to mention the implications for this society should we continue tolerating the exposure of our young people to effects which are uncongenial to their mental and moral development.

I support the motion before Council.

(The Hon. F. K. Hu left during Dr. Kim Y. S. Cham's address.)

MR. HOWARD H. W. YOUNG (in English):-Mr. Chairman, in order to keep the time, I would like to table my speech in its full pre-printed form and only deliver the following shortened form on three topics.

Hawkers

There is probably no other subject within the jurisdiction of the Council which is more controversial and which causes more heart-burns than Hawkers, or in more appropriate nomenclature-Street Traders.

There is no doubt that during the last few years, the Council has progressed considerably in its thinking on hawker affairs and positive steps have been taken to grasp the nettle and to try and solve the problem instead of brushing it under the carpet. Hawking has been put into its proper perspective by referring to it as street trading, and regarding it as a small-scale business disassociated from Social Welfare.

When going through the statement of aims for 1980-81, it is welcoming to see statements such as 'To seek a gradual reduction in street trading as circumstances permit' and 'to reduce progressively the heavy subsidy from public funds'. The aims in themselves appear satisfactory, but when we match