The chief associations representa tive of the residents of all nation-Jalities in the Colony are prossing the authorities to devise some means of continuing the protection of tenants, particularly menaced by the Chinese landlords, who are able always to obtain high rents from wealthy refugees from Canton or from Chinese families who do not mind crowding together. The newspapers are again taking the part of [the harassed wage-earners, who in most cases pay out at least a third Jof their total income in rent. The Government, I have good reason to believe, ix at present engaged in discussion with the members of the Legislative and Executive Councils fas to the possibility of substituting the present Ordinance by one that ill be fair to all parties—naturally dificult proposition, Throughout the present discus-ions of the matter, whether on platform or in the Pross, there is [distinct tone of moderation, with tendency to sympathize with those landlords who, without being grasping, are yet affected adversely by law that has given them no safeguards. In the interview I have already referred to, the case of Shanghai was given as an example of Place where the housing problem was happily not acute, and it was [pointed out that Hongkong property-owners have problems to contend Jagainst which the north knows nothing of such as typhoons and white ants.
For the present the matter can ely be left in the hands of an administration which has the confidence of the entire population, owing to previous proof of its fairness and solicitude for any class that might require consideration. But the agitation emphasizes anew the from a shortsighted policy in the past, with ithe result that the authorities are jteft with the.almost impossible task reconciling a number of acute economic problems, all more or lest related, such as rents and.wage demands, and revolving in a circle with ever-growing circumference.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.