REVIEW
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over $1 million, of which the British Government provided £25,000 in return for priority of use during the dock's first 20 years. Because of the tense situation in the Far East the Admiralty decided in 1896 to extend the naval dockyard, to construct a graving dock, and to acquire as a military area the reclamation and some privately owned land dividing the naval and military areas on the north side of Queen's Road. At the same time it was decided to extend the naval area on the western side of the Kowloon peninsula.
In 1898 11,058 ships of 13,252,733 tons entered and cleared the port and in 1901 an estimated 3,480,987 tons of cargo was exported from Hong Kong. Shipping had always been the basis of local industry, as it had of commerce, and after his arrival in the Colony in 1891 the Governor, Sir William Robinson, set out to encourage local manufacturers to diversify their products. Between the years 1891 and 1897 factories producing metal goods, soap, briquettes, rattan articles and cotton were established, and at the same time extensions to the docks, sugar refineries and cement works were begun.
Shipping legislation promulgated during the last decade-of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth included the Sunday Cargo Working Ordinance of 1891 and the Pilots Ordinance of 1904. The first of these ordinances was enacted to discourage merchant ships from working cargo on Sundays, thereby permitting seamen more leisure time. Revenue collected under this ordinance during the first year of its operation amounted to $2,150. The Pilots Ordinance was introduced for the purpose of examining and licensing harbour pilots. The harbour master's report for 1905 shows that 20 candidates, including six Europeans, were examined, but only 11 passed.
Another severe typhoon affected the Colony on 10th November 1900. HMS Sandpiper, 10 launches and over 110 junks were sunk, and more than 200 lives lost in little more than three hours. Yet another severe typhoon passed near Hong Kong the following year with heavy loss of life, and on 18th September 1906, a very severe typhoon caused the loss of 2,413 Chinese-type craft and 141 European-type vessels. The death roll was over 10,000 and included