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1
November 17, 1902.]
the Governor, Sir H. A. Blake, G.C.M.G., Lady Blake and Miss Blake, Sir John Keane (Private Secretary to H.E.), and Capt. Arbuth- not, A.D.C., besides several prominent public officials. The familiarity with the different parts afforded by the public appearance of Thursday evening brought with it a greater degree of smoothness in the working of the play, and contributed distinctly to the success of a per- formance that was much enjoyed by all present. The band of H.M.S Ocean played the follow- ing selection of music during the evening:- Overture..... "William Tell,"
Rosini Caryll Czibulka Ganne
Selection
Valse
"The Toreador," "Ballscenen,"
Mazurka...... "La Czarine,”
STREET DANGERS IN HONGKONG.
It is not too much to say that that portion of Queen's Road between the Post Office and Ice House Street would vie with many of the most congested London crossings in the matter of dangers to the pedestrian. The never ending double line of rickshas pretty well monopolises the whole of the available walking space there. Then there is the frequent bicycle, One hears cyclists often complaining that they can ride their machines only at the imminent risk of 2 broken neck, for
the tinkle of the alarm bell conveys no meaning to the ricksha-puller or his confrère the chair-coolie. Some wheelmen have resorted to the practice of carrying a stick at the handle-bar with which to persuade the obstructionists to "halve the road," thus following the example set by a very worthy member of the medical pro- fession in the Colony. But while cyclists have no doubt ground of complaint, the general public who do not use the wheel have some canse to grumble at the cyclist: Cases of furious riding are far from being exceptional in the crowded streets of the city. Reckless riding, too. is common, entailing primarily perhaps danger to the rider but as often as not danger also to pedestrians. For instance, a cyclist was seen the other day coming down Battery Path at a high rate of speed without a brake. It was more by good luck than good guillance that he did not crash into a group of chairs and rickshas standing at the bottom. Another cyclist rushed down the steep gradient of Ice House Etreet at break-neck speed, the only restraining agency being his foot stuck in the fork. One almost
shivers to hear it related that
Я young
lady came down Old Bailey some time ago in the same foolhardy fashion. Another danger to the lieges exists in those heavy, lumbering hand-carts which stacked with bales or bottles come down with a rush from the side streets to the Queen's Road level, Especially is this nuisance obvious in the neighbourhood of D'Aguilar Street. It is a wonder that ac cidents are not more frequent than they appear to be. Of the same sort are the big water-carts of the P.W.D.; these also sometimes come down from the side streets, such as Gardba Road, with a crowd of coolies hanging on in the rear in an endeavour to overcome the velocity of the descent. Surely commonsense should teach the coolies, or at any rate their overseers, to use a skid-brake. It is simple, anything but costly and its effectiveness is beyond question. Slipped below one wheel it would retard the heaviest descending waggon and rob of their terrors the potential Juggernauts of Hongkong.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND
BUILDINGS BILL,
EUR PEAN LANDOWNERS' DETITION,
The following petition, dated the 28th September, 1902, has been addressed to H E. the Governor and is now made public:- To HIS EXCELLENCY SIR HENRY ARTHUR BLAKE, Knight of the Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Gorernor and Com- mander-in-Chief of the Colony of Hongkong and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same.
The humble petition of Jardine, Matheson and Company, the Hongkong Land Investment and Agency Company, Limited, Douglas Lapraik and Company, the Hongkong Canton and Mac o Steam-boat Company, Limited, the China Fire Insurance Company. Limited, the China Traders Insurance Company. Limited, the Spanish and Finance Company, Limited, Hormusjee Na- Dominican Procuration, the Humphreys Estate roje Mody, Emanuel Raphael Belilios, C.M.G.. Sassoon and Company, Linstead and Davis, and David Sassoon and Company. Limited, E. D. Siemssen and Company sheiveth that:
1. Your petitiouers are among the principal European landowners in this colony.
$81 Excellency to the following Public General Act:
(a) The Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. 1845, opens with the recital that "it is expedient to comprise in one General Act sundry provi- sions usually introduced into Aots relative to the acquisition of lands required for under- takings of a public nature and to the compen- sation to be made for the same, This is the keynote of the Act, which is devoted to effectua- ting the principle that everyone injuriously affected by any such undertaking shall receive full compensation.
(b). The Towns Improvement Clauses Act, 1947.
Section 21 provides that compensation shall be paid for any damage occasioned by the execution of the powers of the Act.
(c). The Public Health Act, 1875.
Section 121 (as also The Infectious Diseases Act 1890, section 6) provides for the destruction of infected clothes and bedding, subject to compensation.
The Bill contains in the byelaws for Disin- fection in schedale B a similr power, but tion, which should certainly be given in these without the relieving provision of compensa cases, as also wherever damage is caused in the process of disinfecting houses under the byelaws for the Prevention of Disease in the said schedule. 2. On the 7th July, 1902, a Bill entitled An Ordinance to Consolidate and Amend the Laweregulate the building line, subject to the con- Section 155 empowers the local authority to relating to Public Health and to Buildings was pensation of any owner injuriously affected. read for the first time in the Legislative Coun- Contrast Section 6 (19) of the Bill; compen- cil, the Bill having for its purpose the improve-sation should certainly be paid to any owners ment of the sanitary condition of the colony. of land already leased from the Crown who is required to sacrifice part of his land by a change in the building line.
3. Your petitioners welcome the prospect that modern discoveries in sanitary science, of new legislation for this purpose, believing the ravages of plague and other diseases in the colony during the last few years, and the late frequent collapses of buildings, amply prove some change in the law to be desirable."
4. Your petitioners however most respectfally respect of certain principles which should be but strongly urge that the Bill is defective in
fundamental to such change.
principles is that whenever private rested rights 5. The first and most important of these are sacrificed for the public advantage, full compensation should be made as is always directed in such cases by English Acts of Par- liament. No principle is more firmly established in our constitution, or has oftener been upheld by our courts, than the principle that, without compensation, a violation of the rights of the general good of the community. That the private property will not be permitted even for
economical axiom which your petitioners feel public should pay for what it so acquires is an
sure has but to be stated to be recived. Your petitioners, who believe they express herein the general sense of the landowners of the colony,
would be glad to assist the Government, so far experiment wherein the right to compensation as they are able, in any reasonable sanitary
the present landowners invested their capital in is recognised. It should be remembered that this description of property with certain rights attached, in the faith that such rights would be preserved, which, if they are not, a disastrous failure of public confidence must ensue. It radical difference between iusanitary houses in should also be remembered that there is this England and such as may be called insanitary here, namely that the former are for the most building legislation, and openlydefying the first part aucient structures, older than any restrictive
principles of health, while the latter were e ec ed The drafting of the cases for Japan on the in conformity with the sanitary and building one side and Great Britain, France, and Ger-laws of the colony for the time being in force. A many on the other in relation to the House-tax house in Hongkong which the Bill would make has now commenced, says the Abbe Chronicle, insanitary has not only been hitherto tolerated As already reported, Mr. H. W Denison for by the Government, but is the very creature the Foreign Office and Messrs. Miyaoka and of the law; and, if innovations in the law compel Ochiai are drawing up the Japanese case, while the owner the in public interest to rebuild or the foreign case will at first be drafted by each alter his house, he should be compensated for nation concerned in the arbitration separately. any loss thereby occasioned him. It should The British committee consists of Sir Claude also be remembered that the proposed legislation MacDonald, with Mr. J. C. Hall, British Consul is at best but tentative and temporary, and that at Kobe, and Mr. A. A. C. Bonar, British doubtless the antiquated sanitary principles of Consul at Yokohama, Mr. A. H. Lay, of the twenty years ago bear much the same relation British Legation, being Secretary, and Dr. to the accepted doctrines of to-day as will these Musujima giving legal advice. We understand to those of twenty years bence. the case that is being drafted by Germany has been entrusted to the Consuls of Yokohama and Kobe, and that a similar course has been taken by the French Legation.
compensation in the following words :-
Section 38 propounds the principle of any person sustains any damage by reason of Where the exercise of any of the powers of this Act, in relation to any matter as to which he is not himself in default, full compensation shall be made to him."
This is precisely the position wherein your petitioners claim that the Bill should place among many others, are instances wherein the owners in this colony. But the following,
Bill would, without any compensation whatever, indict the most grievous injury upon owners, in cases where they have fully complied with the existing law.
Section 6 (53) of the Bill proposes to reduce the European reservation by an extensive tract. Many large and costly European residences built within this tract, and the immediate effect have, in reliance on the existing law, been
would be to depreciate such property. If it is of the approach of Chinese tenement houses
necessary thus to increase the Chinese building area, your petitioners submit that it should only be done on terms of compensation to owners who are injuriously affected thereby,
6. Regarding the principels of comp usation whereon municipal improvements of the kind here comtemplated have been carried out in England, your petitioners beg to refer Your'
agree with the Government as to the necessity Section 48 of the Bill. Your petition: rs
but they suggest that the allowance of double of preventing overcowding in Chinese dwellings, the air space required by English Acts is excessive. The Chinese as a rule live much out of doors, use little artificial light, and no fires except a few sticks at certain hours of the day by the Local Government Board under The in the kitchen. The byelaws made in England Public Health Act. 1875, require sleeping-rooms
three hundred cubic feet for each inmate, and ordinarily two hundred and fifty cnbio feet. It The Factory and Workshop Act, 195, requires
is is submitted that in Hongkong four hundred
Ordinance, 1901, is ample, and that at any rate cubic feet as provided by The Public Health
if the allowance so recently fixed by the local legislature is now to be increased this can only be justly done subject to compensation for any loss thereby occasioned in accommodation and reut.
Section 147 of the Bill forbids the er. ction of buildings more than forty feet deep without lateral windows. The effect of this is that owners of deeper sites already leased from the crown (eg. Praya R-clamation lots) must sacrifice either every third house in a row or so much of the land as exceeds the forty feet. Putting aside all questions of the expediency of the prohibition, it is clear that these sacrifices should not be required without compensation.
Sections 148 and 149 of the Bill virtually forbid cubicles. Apart from the question of
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