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normally about 6° lower during the summer than the tem- perature at sea-level but against this advantage must be set the higher humidity during the damp spring season.

Effects of the War.

A great deal of domestic accommodation was destroyed or seriously damaged during the war against Japan. A Building Reconstruction Advisory Committee was appointed during the Military Administration and reported in April, 1946, that tenement-type housing for 160,000 persons and European-type housing for 7,000 persons had been destroyed or seriously damaged. The damage to European houses was caused mainly by looting and the destruction of tenement houses was due chiefly to Allied aerial bombardment. Most of the housing deficiency caused by this destruction could be made up only by new construction or major repairs, and these were slow to start since owners were discouraged by the high cost of building materials and labour (a looted European-type house might cost twice as much to repair as it had cost to build ten years before). In spite of this factor plans for the following repairs and construction were submitted to and approved by Government during the year under review:

Structural reinstatement of

(a) European-type houses

Tenement buildings

Major repairs to

40

(b)

395

(a) European-type houses.

103

(b)

Tenement buildings

390

70

20

Overcrowding.

New tenement buildings.. New European-type houses.

With about 20% of the Colony's poorer class housing destroyed, the rapid rise in the population after Japan's sur- render caused very serious overcrowding during the year under review. Many of the newcomers from China had no knowledge of urban life and were ignorant of the rudiments of sanitation. Thousands sought shelter in damaged premises with no sanitary fittings and drew their water from polluted wells. It was necessary to give the Health Officers powers to compel owners to make their damaged premises as far as possible proof against such squatters. At the end of 1946 the overcrowding of urban dwellings was even more serious than it had been during the period 1940-1941, when three quarters of a million refugees were estimated to have sought refuge in the Colony as a result of Japanese aggression in South China. Town Planning.

The laborious and expensive process of reconstruction can hardly overtake the demand for some time to come. Meanwhile a good opportunity exists to remedy for the future

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the defects which are due to the lack of town planning and of modern standards of hygiene in the past. At the end of the year staff for a Town Planning Section of the Public Works Department was being recruited and a Housing and Town Planning Sub-committee of the Colonial Development and Welfare Committee had already been set up.

Shortage of European-type Housing.

The shortage of European-type accommodation was no less acute. 72% of this type of housing had been heavily damaged or destroyed, with the result that at least 7,000 persons were estimated to have been temporarily or perman- ently displaced. This remarkably high percentage was due to the fact that many buildings of this type had stood empty throughout the Japanese occupation, and were subject during that period to considerable looting. In most cases all sanitary fittings and everything made of wood including roof timbers. had been removed and exposure to the weather had completed the destruction.

By the beginning of 1946 there had been a certain amount of rehabilitation of hotels. The four principal European-type city hotels were left in a dirty but workable condition, and these were requisitioned and used to house officials of the Adminis- tration and returning members of the commercial community. Maximum use was also made of such houses as had survived the Japanese occupation but the large garrison which had to be maintained during the Military Administration constituted an additional demand on the limited accommodation available, particularly since heavy damage had also been sustained by houses and barracks formerly used by the fighting services. The main hotels were de-requisitioned in June, 1946, and the hotel companies continued to work in co-operation with Gov- ernment and to restrict as far as possible the cost of living for those compelled to live in hotels.

This arrangement met the requirements of the then European population which at the middle of the year was practically all male, but with the gradually increasing return of wives and families the shortage of European-type accom- modation became more and more serious. As hotels reached saturation point and the momentum of returning families increased, the opening of boarding houses and hotels was fostered by the Government and some institutional buildings were taken over for use as temporary hostels. Up to the end of the year these expedients proved just adequate to provide a very low and uncomfortable standard of temporary accom- modation for returning personnel. Most single hotel rooms were housing three persons and it appeared that in 1947 the degree of overcrowding would grow still greater.