ENG-1960 — Page 33

20

REVIEW

Income from renting shops was to replace income from agriculture. Government bought their forest plantations, cattle and land at market prices, and arranged religious ceremonies for removing the ancestral tablets. This and much more had to be negotiated patiently and with sympathy, for throughout it was the object of Government not only to ensure that the villagers would be financially better off but also that they would believe that this was so. The move cost about $1,688,000.

No sooner were these people settled than it became necessary to plan to move the villages of Shek Pik and Fan Pui on Lantau, to make way for a still newer reservoir which is about to be described. This move was in the end to cost about $3,255,000. These villagers of the western end of Lantau Island were cut off almost entirely from the twentieth century. The nearest town was Tai O, and to get there the villagers had to climb a high mountain range. There were no roads on Lantau until 1957 and a road did not reach Shek Pik until early in 1959, by which time engineering work on the reservoir had started. Few activities of the Govern- ment had penetrated into the valley, and most of the inhabitants had probably never seen a railway train or a motor car, much less travelled in one. It was not surprising that the villagers viewed plans for the reservoir with the utmost suspicion and resentment. Again there were efforts to find land suitable for agriculture and at one time it seemed possible to arrange agricul- tural resettlement within six miles of Shek Pik. In the event only the smaller village of Fan Pui agreed to settle on new agricultural land while Shek Pik village decided on resettlement in Tsuen Wan. At Tai Lam the main dam was well downstream from the village and construction work did not unduly hamper village life. At Shek Pik, Fan Pui lay in the direct line of the main dam, and Shek Pik village lay on land from which earth was to be excavated to build the dam. Fan Pui was the first to be resettled. Again protracted negotiations took place on every detail of the design of new houses, the many forms of compensation and the arrange- ments for the move. Many difficulties beset work on the new village for there was at first no road access and when terracing began for the fields the land was found to contain many large boulders. But once the houses were ready the village of 62 souls