ENG-1951 — Page 89

Other small and privately financed schemes are assisted by the Government by being allowed Crown leases on special low terms.

Over the last six years there has been a rapid increase in the numbers of blocks of modern apartments, some of them buildings of 7 storeys and over, ranging from apartments comparable in luxury with any in Britain and America to small family flats compact in size and with every modern convenience. Even on the Peak several large blocks have been constructed, some by commercial firms which have in some cases combined their resources to provide accommodation for their employees, and some by the Government for housing civil servants and their families.

Where high-standard accommodation in houses and apartments is concerned there is little or no difference between accommodation used

by Europeans and Chinese. In the rural parts of Hong Kong Island, on Victoria Peak and in the mainland suburban area of Kowloon Tong there are large numbers of houses and bungalows of first-rate

construction.

In the older residential districts of Kowloon, the lower levels of the Peak immediately above the Central and Western districts of Victoria, and in the Causeway Bay area there are large old houses, many of which to-day accommodate entire Chinese families with their numerous dependants who in some cases use each floor, or sections of each floor, as separate apartments for their own immediate families. Similar arrangements are made by many of the older Portuguese families resident in Kowloon.

In

The most thickly-populated areas are those consisting of accom- modation of a lower standard, occupied almost entirely by Chinese; Wanchai, the Central and Western districts of Victoria, and a large part of Kowloon consist of row upon row of 4-storey buildings, the ground floors of which are usually shops, while the upper floors are dwellings, each floor consisting of one large room subdivided into cubicles of approximately 64 sq. ft., in which an entire family may live, using a communal kitchen and latrine shared by three or four families. many of the older buildings of this kind, there are no washing facilities, and the inhabitants are dependent upon public conveniences and bath-houses. Many of the defects in this type of housing are due to lack of controlling legislation in the latter part of the last century, when many of these houses were built. The Public Health and Buildings Ordinance, 1903, was the first governmental attempt at improving standards, but of course the standards of those times fell far short of what would be considered appropriate to-day. Control is now maintained under the Buildings Ordinance, 1935, which laid down certain improvements in the lighting and ventilation of old

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