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100
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. I would like to welcome on your behalf Mr. Kenneth BARNETT, who was Chairman of the Urban Council and Director of Urban Services from 13 August 1951 until 31 March 1954. Welcome to Hong Kong. (Applause)
MINUTES
The minutes of the meeting held on 18 November 1980 were confirmed.
STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Much has been said here and there about recreation and culture. It is now the fashion to do so. Many genuinely promote them for the good of the community. Others do so vocally with motives of their own. All want to be identified with success, for reasons good or bad, tenuous or not. So let it be, if the community stands to gain in consequence.
This Council was a voice in the wilderness more than two decades ago. Hong Kong had then little or nothing to offer the young for their recreation and the old for their leisure. Sport was mostly practised by the very few who had access to private clubs on public land. Cultural presentations were few and far between. It was not the vogue then to be concerned unduly with the social needs of a community on the move.
Now, of course, the situation has changed. Nearly everywhere, there are public playgrounds and sitting-out areas, relatively small in size perhaps but still found in most neighbourhoods and generally located where most needed. Also, day in and day out, there are many free activities for the pleasure and enlightenment of all who care to take part. There is clearly a growing social commitment to the common man in a way that was never the case before.
When suitable land is hard to get, planning inadequate and competition heavy, such a beneficial position has not come about for the asking. Still, all is not over and done with, by far. There are many heavily populated urban districts untenably short of open spaces and play facilities. And, they are not only the old ones. Even in laying out the new districts postwar, the opportunity was lost to do better. Professional town-planning standards appear to have been set aside to pander to rapacity. Judging by results, decision-makers still seem to discount the rising standards an affluent society expects; moreover, administrators in authority submit expediently when they should be building a city fit for men to live in with dignity. The community suffers in consequence. Density is compounded and endemic social problems are aggravated inevitably.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
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When true education standards rise beyond the hurried making of efficient cogs to help turn the wheels of commerce and industry by tradition, then the day of reckoning may not be put off by the old standby of handing out sticks and carrots in turn to the critical or the pliable as the case may be.
The making of opportunities for individual advancement and the development of activities for community betterment cannot be put off for long with impunity. For, anti-social situations arise as a matter of course. The authorities should not be surprised with the sure consequence of neglect, and then they hastily do too little too late.
Meanwhile, by careful planning and organization backed by the meaningful application of limited resources, much has been achieved independently by this Council in response to public needs. Overcoming apathy and ignorance, struggling against opposition born of self-interest, such a policy pursued with vision and determination has made Hong Kong a leading centre of recreation and culture in the region. The beneficial thrust of this social policy is valued more elsewhere with an objectivity sadly lacking here. A blinkered outlook risks holding back the pace of community development to the general detriment.
True, there are some who play to the gallery when the going is rough and shout that expenditure on cultural activities should be cut. Should this Council run down its museums and libraries and stop all their numerous activities for the people in their own districts; disband its orchestras and drama companies; deprive the people of the many and varied opportunities to enrich their education and raise their standards of appreciation which the visits of overseas groups mean in effect? Perhaps it is not realized that such a retrogressive advocacy could be construed as a rearguard action to keep the disadvantaged people of this society in intellectual subjugation. For a community awash with money, it might well be a latter-day subjection of the mind and the spirit to the rule of the almighty dollar. Would it not be worse than the economic exploitation by force of arms in another age?
The realities of Hong Kong's present position must be faced squarely. It is certainly no more a colonial backwater. Neither is it only a commercial entrepot, nor even just an industrial, financial and communications centre of convenience. It is all these things and more. Indeed, it is a place where well over five million people live and work in harmony. It is in essence a progressive city-state in the declining years of this dynamic century. And so, public policy should accord with this new status in all its dimensions.
The people have made this place what it is in fact. They will doubtless want more out of it in quick time than they have got so far. As their conditions change rapidly with the world all about them to see and compare, their ambitions will rise in measure.
Page 68 of 120
Page 67 of 120
100
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
ADDRESS BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. I would like to welcome on your behalf Mr. Kenneth BARNETT, who was Chairman of the Urban Council and Director of Urban Services from 13 August 1951 until 31 March 1954. Welcome to Hong Kong. (Applause)
MINUTES
The minutes of the meeting held on 18 November 1980 were confirmed.
STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN
CHAIRMAN (in English):-Much has been said here and there about recrea- tion and culture. It is now the fashion to do so. Many genuinely promote them for the good of the community. Others do so vocally with motives of their own. All want to be identified with success, for reasons good or bad, tenuous or not. So let it be, if the community stands to gain in consequence.
This Council was a voice in the wilderness more than two decades ago. Hong Kong had then little or nothing to offer the young for their recreation and the old for their leisure. Sport was mostly practised by the very few who had access to private clubs on public land. Cultural presentations were few and far between. It was not the vogue then to be concerned unduly with the social needs of a community on the move.
Now, of course, the situation has changed. Nearly everywhere, there are public playgrounds and sitting-out areas, relatively small in size perhaps but still found in most neighbourhoods and generally located where most needed. Also, day in, day out, there are many free activities for the pleasure and enlightenment of all who care to take part. There is clearly a growing social commitment to the common man in a way that was never the case before.
When suitable land is hard to get, planning inadequate and competition heavy, such a beneficial position has not come about for the asking. Still, all is not over and done with, by far. There are many heavily populated urban districts untenably short of open spaces and play facilities. And, they are not only the old ones. Even in laying out the new districts postwar, the opportunity was lost to do better. Professional town-planning standards appear to have been set aside to pander to rapacity. Judging by results, decision- makers still seem to discount the rising standards an affluent society expects; moreover, administrators in authority submit expediently when they should be building a city fit for men to live in with dignity. The community suffers in consequence. Density is compounded and endemic social problems are aggravated inevitably.
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 67 of 120
101
When true education standards rise beyond the hurried making of efficient cogs to help turn the wheels of commerce and industry by tradition, then the day of reckoning may not be put off by the old standby of handing out sticks and carrots in turn to the critical or the pliable as the case may be.
The making of opportunities for individual advancement and the develop- ment of activities for community betterment cannot be put off for long with impunity. For, anti-social situations arise as a matter of course. The authorities should not be surprised with the sure consequence of neglect, and then they hastily do too little too late.
Meanwhile, by careful planning and organization backed by the meaningful application of limited resources, much has been achieved independently by this Council in response to public needs. Overcoming apathy and ignorance, struggling against opposition born of self-interest, such a policy pursued with vision and determination has made Hong Kong a leading centre of recreation and culture in the region. The beneficial thrust of this social policy is valued more elsewhere with an objectivity sadly lacking here. A blinkered outlook risks holding back the pace of community development to the general detri- ment.
True, there are some who play to the gallery when the going is rough and shout that expenditure on cultural activities should be cut. Should this Council run down its museums and libraries and stop all their numerous activities for the people in their own districts; disband its orchestras and drama companies; deprive the people of the many and varied opportunities to enrich their education and raise their standards of appreciation which the visits of over- seas groups mean in effect? Perhaps it is not realized that such a retrogressive advocacy could be construed as a rearguard action to keep the disadvantaged people of this society in intellectual subjugation. For a community awash with money, it might well be a latter-day subjection of the mind and the spirit to the rule of the almighty dollar. Would it not be worse than the economic exploitation by force of arms in another age?
The realities of Hong Kong's present position must be faced squarely. It is certainly no more a colonial backwater. Neither is it only a commercial entrepot, nor even just an industrial, financial and communications centre of convenience. It is all these things and more. Indeed, it is a place where well over five million people live and work in harmony. It is in essence a progres- sive city-state in the declining years of this dynamic century. And so, public policy should accord with this new status in all its dimensions.
The people have made this place what it is in fact. They will doubtless want more out of it in quick time than they have got so far. As their condi- tions change rapidly with the world all about them to see and compare, their ambitions will rise in measure.
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