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THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND BUILDINGS ORDINANCE,
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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[September 8, 1902. - ment will be arduous. No one, we imagine, į will be found throughout the native will dispute that "fair compensation is quarters of this city. They exist in con- due to the property-owners, but the defini-juoction, and the result is a very unhealthy tion of what is fair compensation may well density of population. It is interesting to see how we stand in comparison with other puzzle anyone trying to reconcile the views of the different parties. The most obvious cities. In the June number of the North means of estimating the amount due-and American Review there is published a paper Municipal Suppression of Infection this is the means which recommends itself on to the owners-is to take the market value and Contagion," by Dr. E. J. LEDERLE, the of the property at the time of resumption of Commissioner of Health for New York City. land or of alteratious to buildings and by A paragraph in this article runs as follows:
"The poor in tenements are more sinned this to fix what sum the Government shall
against than sinning, for the greed of pay the owners. But, it will reasonably be
"landlords often stands in the way of objected, this is the extreme limit of com-
"better housing for the people. In New pensation, not merely fair compensation,
York, the devoted labours of sanitarians and the Government will thus be paying an
"interested in improving tenement condi- extremely heavy sum to those who have al-
tions resulted last year in the passage of ready been reaping an abundant harvest out of the recent circumstances of the Colony. During the past two years and more the standard of house-rent has been increasing enormously-figures could easily be adduced to prove this, if it were at all necessary and the profits have all gone into the land- lords' pockets. The money which the Government will use to pay compensation with comes from the public revues, and the present body of ratepayers will there. fore see their contributions going to pay off the most prosperous portion of the com- munity, even though the results will be beneficial to future generations in the Colony, Moreover, it may be added, the loss occasioned by the decrease in living- room space due to alteracions under the new Ordinance will assuredly not fall principally on the landlords, but on the tenants, who will finds their rents increasing to meet the landlords' deficiencies. So it may be, and indeed is already, argued on the side of those who oppose the full claims of the property- owners.
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(Daily Press, 30th August.) The most important measure which is to come before the Legislative Council in the near future, if indeed it is not the most important measure which has ever come before that body since its institution, is "The Public Health and Buildings Ordinance, 1902", as it is comprehensively called. This Bill should have come up for second reading in the Council on the 8th August, but on that day H. E. the Officer Administer ing the Government stated that, after a good deal of consideration, he thought that it would be fairer both to H.E. the Governor and to the Legislative Council to postpone the second reading until Sir HENRY BLAKE's return to Hongkong, so that the same chairman might carry out the whole important matter. This delay has enabled the public, to a limited extent, to hear the land-owners' case, for although the report on the ordinance drawn up for the owners the European owners,
it is to be remarked, for the Chinese land- lords are preparing their Own by Messrs. DANBY, DENNISON, RAM & GIBBS, LEIGH & ORANGE, and PALMER & TURNER, is datel the 5th August, it was not actually in print until two weeks later. The questions involved in the pro- posed measure are so vital to the future well-being of the Colony that it is well that all interested should become fully acquainted, if possible, with every aspect of the case. The opportunity, therefore, given to residents here to study the case of the owners of property is to be welcomed. The fate of the Ordinance will be decided
The Government stands between in Council, of course, but nevertheless public opinion must make its weight felt. these two parties to the dispute, representing The Legislative Council, it must be remem as it does, and being guardian of the in- bered, is supposed to represent the whole terests of, the whole community of Hongkong. Colony, not one class rather than others, In justice the Governor and the Legislative and in the sense of responsibility of the Council cannot pay undue weight to the re- Council the hopes of the community must presentations of either party. Their duty rest. The discussion which the proposed is to arrive at & solution of the problem Ordinance aroused when first it was put which will be equitable to both. The drafted by Messrs. forward by Messrs. CHADWICK and SIMPSON Bill which was sufficient to show what controversial CHADWICK and SIMPSON provided for an points were touched by it. In particular, the arbitrating Board of three members. 10 property-owners have subjected the measure decide the amount of compensation to be to criticism, and in order to secure an paid to owners in cases of resumption of adequate exposition of their case for the land or extinction of rights, the members of consideration of the Legislative Council the Board being a judge of the Supreme they applied to certain leading civil en Court, acting as Chairman, and nominces of gineers and architects in this Colony to the Governor and of the landlord respec- draw up a report on the Bill, the report tively. To this proposal no exception has which is now before us. It will thus be been taken by the framers of the report seen that the long and carefully prepared made for the committee of property owners, document is not the dispassionate verdict of and there is no ground for exception on the an expert commission, but a statement of part of others. But the principle upon the property-owners' case by experts re- which the amount of compensation due is to tained to draw it up. Havi: g said so much be arrived at is of course not specified in by way of premise, we must admit that the the draft Bill, and it is this principle which owners have every right to consideration by calls for full discussion in the Legislative the Government that entered with them Council, the guardians of the rights of the into the original contracts which will be whole community, landlords and tenants alike. affected by the bill. Their arguments with regard to the proposed measure call for (Daily Press, 2nd September.) most careful attention. They do not, in It will readily be understood by all who the first place, object to the Bill in itself. have followed the course of the agitation It is the question of compensation to which for sanitary improvements in Hongkong, they are devoting their energies. When which culminated in the mission of two the Bill comes up lefore the Legislative experts from home and the preparation by The Public Council again the owners will be represented them of the measure entitled by counsel, whose arguments will mainly Health and Buildings Ordinance, 1902," concern the compensation clauses, which in that one of the greatest evils with which we the measure as it stands at present are not considered to protec: the owners sufficiently. That the question of compensation would be the main difficulty in the Ordinance it did not require much penetration to perceive when the draft Bill was published, and it may be safely prophesied that the settle
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have to contend here is that of overcrowding, As Messrs. CHADWICK and SIMPSON pointed out in the report issued over their signatures last June, there are two kinds of overcrowd ing, caused respectively by too many houses in one area and by too many people in one house. Both these varieties of overcrowding
a law governing the construction "tenements, and requiring that they be "built with more attention to the sanitary needs of their occupants. But, at the "following session, the Legislature was besieged by greedy landlords, and it "required all the efforts of the Tenement "House Commission, seconded by the "Board of Health, to prevent the passage "of amendments which would have quite emasculated the law, and led to tho construction, in the newer sections of the 'city, of a form of tenements calculated "to perpetuate all the evils now exist- 'ing in the older slums. While it is "not generally known, it may be stated "here that in some of the older wards "in New York City there are
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of land which hold between 700 and 800 people each; the most thickly populated acre in the Old World, by way of com- parison is said to be one in Prague, which "accoinmodates' 485 people. The average density of population in the whole of "Manhattan Island is greater than in any "other city of the civilised world; that is "because three-fourths of the population live “in tenements, piled tier on tier to the skies."
It is thus noted by Dr. LEDERLE that some acres of land in New York have actually between 700 and 800 people living on them. Let us turn to Hongkong. Our Medical Officer of Health in his report for 1901 records the fact that the numbers of persons per acre in the ten health-districts of the city of Victoria were as follows:- 108.4, 181.9, 61.6, 465.0, 827.4, 660.8, 403.7, Thus one district, 448.7, 562.7, and 125.8. No. 5, exceeds considerably the worst figures of New York, while districts Nos. 6 and 9 are worse than the worst of Europe. Yet even in the 1901 figures there was an im- provement on those of 1900, when No. 5 district was first with 849.7 persons per acre, and No. 6 district next with 816.9. There were then four other districts with a population of 500 or more per acre. the improvement of last year still left Hongkong in a very unenviable position with regard to overcrowding. As in New York, it is the crowded tenement house which swells up the list.
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numbers of persons per floor and per house in the Colony in 1901 were 7.6 and 21.6, more than uine being the average number a floor in No: 9 health-district and between twenty-five and twenty-six the in No. 4 district. average per house This is the chief evil resulting from the abuse of the cubicle system, about which the proposed Ordinance has already roused a good deal of discussion. By the facility which at present exists for cutting up one room or floor into a number of small cubicles, most of them without windows and with very imperfect ventilation, the less wealthy natives are enabled to live crowded together in parts to the extent of more than eight hundred on an acre of ground. What
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