ENG-1951 — Page 15

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to investigate the Colony's needs in the field of technical and vocational training, and the second under the chairmanship of Mr. John Keswick, C.M.G., to examine how far the present facilities for higher education fall short of the Colony's needs and to make recommendations for improvement.

The work of these two committees is considerable and it is not expected that either of them will be in a position to report to the Governor before the middle of 1952.

The problem of higher education has been aggravated by the fact that those sections of the community which formerly sent their children to China or the United States for university education are now in most cases unable to do so. Many of the students who would ordinarily have been sent to Chinese universities are unable to enter the University of Hong Kong because their standard of English is not high enough, and there is consequently no alternative for them but to seek employment immediately after leaving school.

Road Traffic

A matter which has been engaging the attention of the Police to a considerable extent during the year is the Colony's unprecedented traffic problem. The number of licensed motor vehicles rose during the year from 16,028 to 16,746, excluding Service vehicles, and a traffic census carried out by the Police disclosed that there are now 38.9 motor vehicles for every mile of road in the Colony, the density of traffic at some junctions being quite as heavy as at some of the major road junctions in London. The chief traffic difficulties are lack of parking space and the extreme congestion, particularly in the centre of Victoria, during rush hours. The remedy would of course be to construct new highways through the city centre in accordance with a modern traffic plan, but this could not be done without resuming land and demolishing property to an extent the Government could not possibly consider. The situation has had to be met therefore by improving road surfaces, enlarging and improving (with slight resumptions of land) certain particularly dangerous and obstructive corners in central Victoria, notably those round the Cricket Club Ground and at the bottom of Garden Road, and taking increased Police measures to organize vehicle and pedestrian traffic. That these measures have met with success is shown by the remarkable reduction in the number of road accidents which fell from 8,327 in 1950 to 6,859 this year, fatal accidents among these being reduced from 129 to 104.

Mining

The very high world prices of wolfram and lead have had their repercussions in comparatively remote parts of the New Territories where hundreds of persons started prospecting illegally in the early part

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