406
THE CUBICLE QUESTION.
12
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
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(Daily Press, 15th June). Experience keeps a dear school." The remainder of the quotation need not be mentioned. Hongkong has had a four years' experience of the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance, and the Commission which sat to inquire into the irregularities to which that measure gave rise has en- abled us to count the cost. No one doubts the genuineness of the motives and the hopes of reform which inspired its framers, but the clumsy and overladen Ordinance was drawn up without a knowledge of human nature as it is found in Hongkong and without a due appreciation of the economic conditions under which the masses live. It is very human, we know, to adopt the "I told you so
attitude after the event, but we cannot restrain a conscious ness of satisfaction that the Daily Press was among the earliest to express the conviction that the attempt to abolish cubicles had failed and that instead of improved sanitary conditions in the houses of the thousands of poorer Chinese there were worse. In February of last year articles appeared in our columns setting forth this view and showing how the Ordinance created un- necessary hardships without effecting any betterment in the conditions of the people. Then the Commission was appointed, and the exposure of the uselessness and danger of the objectionable section followed. In deed the recommendations of the Com- missioners on the cubicle question are the most valuable in the report, a fact which has been realised by the Government and led to a change of attitude which reflects credit on the responsible officials. When mistakes are made and pointed out it is well to recognise them and to profit by the experience gained.
It will be remembered that by the Public Health and Buildings Ordinance of 1903-which it Was boped would be the last word on a thorny subject it was anticipated that builders would be forced to erect suitable houses which would contain legal rooms. But apparently the speculation was not regarded as attractive and the old type of teuement houses, about fifty or sixty feet deep, with out lateral windows, was continued. Yet cubicles had been abolished by law. How could the old-fashioned type of house be made to pay? Very easily. No matter how carefully any legislation may be drawn a way to evade it can always be found, especially by such an inventive people as the Chinese. In this instance the wooden partitions were r. moved, thus, complying with the law, but in their place appeared sacking or curtains dividing the little apartments. Not only did the latter afford less privacy but they constituted a menace to health. Naturally the Chinese found the measure very repressive. The wisdom of it was not apparent to them and as it exposed them to harsh treatment and a series of harassing visits from Government minions their voices were raised in complaint. Nothing however was done but now that the Commission has focussed opinion on the subject something will be done. The Government has realised how impracticable were its attempts to abolish cubicles by the mere passing of an Ordinance, and it has decided to go back to the conditions prevail- ing before 1903. Cubicles are to be allowed. Each house and each floor is to be assessed, giving the number of cubicles permissible according to the space, a policy which is certain to be appreciated by the Chinese.
And yet with this concession-which the economic conditions demanded-the problem
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[Jane 24, 1907,
of the housing of the people is still un- foreign innovations to stop the way. Tele- solved. How important it is that the graphs had not been introduced for the community should be housed under healthy beneät of trade, nor were the interests of conditions is admitted by everybody who merchants at all considered in their con- gives the subject a thought, but some struction. It was seen, indeed that some of how there seems to be an aversion to the expenses of keeping up the lines might be seriously face the problem and to try got back if they were thrown open to the for a solution consistent with the enlighten- public, and so a tariff, needlessly high, if the ment which British administration is object of the lines were mercantile, was supposed to mean. It is no compliment decided on, seemingly in consultation with to Western civilisation that whatever the manager of the Great Northern Line advantages life in Hongkong may mean
who for reasons of his own did not care to for the natives it does not provide them see too low rates in contrast with those of with as good living accommodation as his own company. Whatever was the in- they would find in Chinese cities. The tention of the Government with regard to system of housing here is unique. It is the lines, the accommodation of the public neither European nor Chinese. It is a was the last thing that e tered its mind, and combination possessing the defects of so from the very beginning the control "of both with the advantages of neither. As the telegraph became a private affair in the has been pointed out before in the Daily hands of the appointed Director, the then Press, the question is one for the con-
well-known SHENG SWANHWEI, more fre- sideration of builders as much as for the quently known by his usual title of SHING Government. With a city situated as Taotai. Following the customary practice Hongkong is, built at the base of a of Chinese Government appointments, hill, with a population giving to swarm- no accounts were required to be kept ing in vast aggregations, the authori- the Director making his own private ties will find it well nigh impossible to arrangements at Peking, and for the rest bring about unaided a better system of pursuing the good old plan of appropriating housing. Unless they are assisted by all he could. Manifestly under this happy- landowners and builders they can effect go-lucky system, it was SHENG's interest to little improvement in existing conditions. say as little as possibl about tariffs, and to Nevertheless it remains for the Government make as few changes as possible, lest too to take the initiative. The fact that much attention should be drawn to the little overcrowding exists is no reason for adding perquisite. But naturally he had to pay to the evil by sanctioning the erection or keeping the affair dark; and one of additional houses in congested areas.
of the little exactions that he found him- With cheaper dwellings provided in out-self unable to control was that every official lying districts at rents which will make who fancied that he had influence at Peking it worth the people's while travelling the conceived himself entitled to uɛe the line for greater distance-a condition which should his own private purposes; and under the De rendered possible by the reduced pretence of sending Government messages value of the land-the question of over- insisted on using the line as his own private crowding would adjust itself in time. property. It is one of the worst features That it is possible to build more suitable of such a system of finance that it opens houses for Chinese and yet show a profit is the door to all manner of irregularities, and an opinion we have expressed befire, and SHENG'S control of the telegraphs was on a with His Excellency the Acting Governor par with all the rest of the financial At last matters of the same mind it ought not to be long administration of China. before we see the experiment tried and its came to a crisis, and SHENG, who, in spite success proved. If speculators hesitate, His of his nominal promotion to the rank of Excellency might show them the way. We Kung Pao, has been steadily losing ground don't suggest that the Government should at Peking, was relieved of the office, and a embark on undertakings which have hither- new Director under a salary of Tis. 1,000 to been left to private enterprise, but an per mensem appointed, Taotni Yang experiment conducted by the Government WANCHUN. Apparently Taotai YANG sees in the interests of public health would not possibilities in the affair which SHENG has be disregarded by landowners, property beeu anxious to o nceal, and his first act on owners and builders. A "model" block of taking over the administration has been to workmen's tenements should be a remunera- boldly tive experiment, and the builders would hardly oppose it as unfair competition under the circumstances.
CHINA TELEGRAPHS.
(Daily Press 17th June). As an indication of the perverse spirits with whom China has to deal in her path towards reform, we may point to a recent attempt to amend the Tariff for inlaud telegrams which has been so high as seriously to bamper the trade of the country; and not only to do so but as a natural sequence to prevent the revenue from this source ever reaching a paying standard. The revenue derived by the Government from its system of Imperial Telegraphs has, in fact, never had fair play; and has never repaid the country for its outlay; though doubtless individual, and more especially the late Director, and a few of his friends, have contrived to feather their nests to s me purpose. When first China found herself at war with France, and afterwards with Japan, the construction of telegraph lines impressed itself upon the Government, and there were found no obstacles of Fengshui or outcries against
memorialise the New Board of Communications for permission to reduce by fifty per cent. the present charges. For some time, it may be remembered, the same SHENG SWANHWEI has been also at the head of the railway administration, and apparent- ly the same system has been in fuil rogue there. There is at least liftle doubt that the Government has never received its fair share of the traffic receipts, while the whole thing has been carried on in an equally ignorant and wasteful manner, and prefer- ences have been the rule all round, while no encouragement has been held out for whole- some increases. The Government has been, ot is true, largely to blame itself for killing the growing goods traffic by the exaction of likin charges, but the mischief thus done has been smalt in comparison with that due to the other abuses which under the family system of SHENG have grown and fattened round the railway administration. But SHENG is by no means disposed to permit his carefully cherished sy tem of exploitation of the ravenues of China_to be extinguished without a struggle, and there are many more, such as he who are prepared to come to the rescue of a system under which they What is it to them that have grown fat.
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