ENG-1955 — Page 16

Chapter 1: Review of the Year

Hong Kong residents, as they saw 1955 out, called it an ordinary year. Hong Kong's definition of the word "ordinary", however, needs examination. The last decade has conditioned the Colony to spectacular events. Development and change, on a scale which visitors usually consider remarkable, tend to be regarded in the Colony itself as commonplace.

1955, people say, has been an ordinary year. It has seen the Government's announcement that a thorough investigation is to be made into the problem of driving a tunnel underneath the world-famous harbour, making it possible to pass by car in less than five minutes from Garden Road to the foot of Kowloon Peninsula. Yet, typical of Hong Kong public reactions, the fact that a tunnel would probably cost the tax-payer HK$160,000,000 did not figure large in the dis- cussions that followed the announcement. Comment centred on whether it would not be preferable, instead of a tunnel, to have a bridge.

The year also saw the start of work on a $110,000,000 project to revolutionize Kai Tak Airport by the construction of a 7,200-ft. runway on an artificial promontory reclaimed from the sea and projecting out into the waters of Kowloon Bay. In danger of being knocked off the international airline map by reason of its airport being too small and dangerous for the Comet and the larger conventional airliners, Hong Kong has now taken steps to keep itself firmly on the map. The airport project, when completed in 1958, will provide, for the first time since aviation started in the Colony, facilities for day and night operation all the year round.

A $125,000,000 reservoir is in course of construction at Tai Lam Chung, and during the year the Colony learnt without emotion that yet another reservoir, on the same scale, is likely to follow this one.

An important reclamation of waterfront in the heart of the Central District has provided land for the erection of a City Hall, long the subject of debate between those who think