PART II
Chapter 1.
Until a census, at present planned for 1948, has been held any estimate of the population of Hong Kong is necessarily very approximate. When
•POPULATION⚫ the last official census was taken in 1931 the total population was found to be 864,117. Since then the violent fluctuations, caused first by the influx of refugees from Canton when the Japanese attacked that city in 1938, and later by the Japanese occu- pation of the Colony and its subsequent liberation in 1945 make impossible the formation of any but the most approximate estimate. In 1941 an unofficial census carried out by Air Raid Wardens gave a figure of 1,600,000, a total which is believed to have been reached again in 1946 after the enormous reduction caused by the Japanese occupation. Even after the
end of 1946 the population continued to rise until about mid- 1947 when it ceased to grow. So far as it is possible to judge, the population at the close of the year may have been about 1,800,000. Of this total the overwhelming majority are of Chinese race. During the year the number of Europeans, excluding Service personnel and their dependants, increased to about 11,000. Of this number, between 7,000 and 8,000 are British subjects, while 969 are Portuguese nationals, 421 are citizens of the United States of America and 218 of the Philippines; Italian, French, and Netherlands nationals account for 152, 134 and 118 respectively. 195 Stateless persons are registered. The remainder include nationals of almost every country. There is a substantial Indian community of about 2,200 persons.
The population of the New Territories is of three races- the Cantonese, the Hakka and the Hoklos. The agricultural population of the New Territories are the Cantonese, mainly settled, some families for several hundred years, in the com- paratively fertile western plains, and the Hakka, whose incursion into the more difficult hilly land of the eastern peninsulas is said to have started about two hundred years ago and may not have finished yet. Generally speaking, the Hakka appear to have occupied any potentially arable land disregarded by the Cantonese. Thus long fingers of Hakka penetration have been extended from the eastern peninsulas over passes into the south- west of the mainland, and out on to the islands. The two sections maintain excellent relations, and although Hakka help Hakka more noticeably than Cantonese help Cantonese, it is remarkable that in their penetration the Hakka have been partly
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