ENG-1956 — Page 35

20

HONG KONG ANNUAL REPORT

Worse still, it would all have to be done over again some day. In the 'approved' areas conditions were, of course, much more satisfactory. Some of them contained charmingly kept and decorated cottages which were much to be preferred from health and other points of view to the overcrowded tenements in the town. But each cost well over $1,000 and while few squatters were destitute, most could not rise to these heights even with assistance from welfare agencies, or with the benefit of hire-purchase terms such as were arranged by the non-profit-making Settlers Housing Corporation. In any event there were only 4,400 of these units, and perhaps fifteen to twenty times that number were still needed. This might not have been too impossible a problem if land could be found on which to site a greatly extended programme. But it could not. It was becoming ominously evident that convenient and available land was absolutely exhausted and that there was now a straight choice between excessively high, and ever increasing, site formation costs in areas which would be acceptable to the squatters, and new sites away from the towns which would not be acceptable. It may seem odd to speak of 'acceptability' in relation to people in such straits-but access to the means of livelihood was an over- riding consideration to them, and where sympathy and co- operation with Government were withdrawn the whole sita- tion was opened up for the insidious political influences that were never far from the squatter settlements. As a practical plan, therefore, the policy which has just been described, though it had made some steady progress for 21 years, was now working itself to a standstill because its basic material- land-was exhausted. On Christmas Night, 1953, land was provided by an act of God. 45 acres were cleared of human habitation by the most extensive fire of the Colony's history.

In the Shek Kip Mei fire of 25th December, 1953, over 50,000 persons lost their homes. This constituted a crisis of the first order, for not only did Government have on its hands a relief programme equivalent in terms of numbers