ENG-1953 — Page 25

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT, 1953

greatest social problem. Its origin lies not in Hong Kong's callousness or indifference to the welfare of its people, but in its humanity and in its long and proud tradition as a free port to the world and a place of refuge for any Chinese who cared to step across the border. In the years since the war, many Chinese, many who had no previous connexion with the Colony, have availed themselves of this frontier without barriers. Now the barriers have had to be put up, but not before at least half a million people were safely inside. (The population increased by 390,000 between June, 1949 and December 1953). It is not unnatural that there were not enough houses to accommodate all these people and it is not unnatural that by fair means or foul many of the newcomers displaced Hong Kong's own citizens, with the result that today Hong Kong is not faced with the comparatively simple problem of an immigrant and refugee population in the squatter settlements, but with the complicated moral predicament of a squatter population which includes, perhaps to an increasing extent, Chinese British subjects, people who have lived in Hong Kong for generations and whose only home it is, people for whom the Hong Kong Government has a very special responsibility. During 1953, the Government distributed five million free meals, but the essential problem is not one of relief. Relief for an excess population for half a million would solve nothing. It is a question of rehabilitation in such a way that the people concerned can be absorbed into the economic life of the basic community. It is not therefore simply a matter of building cheap, manageable, fireproof houses. It is a matter of building these houses in areas where industry can absorb the occupants and of stimulating and assisting industry so that it is in a position to increase employment.

From some points on the hills, particularly to the south of the Island and in the foothills of the Kowloon range, an observer could see rows of neat, clean-looking cottages, regularly spaced and securely sited. These are the resettlement areas

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