REVIEW
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foredeck and two cents for a seat on a bench. Boatmen touted for passengers almost to the point of forcibly dragging them on board and fights were frequent. Finally the Government intervened and called for public tenders to operate a ferry service between Hong Kong Island, Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok Tsui and Sham Shui Po. Between 1918 and 1923 the tender was awarded to the Four Districts Kaifong Company, formed by some of the original 16 boat owners. The routes were from Wilmer Street on Hong Kong Island to Mong Kok Tsui and Sham Shui Po, and from Wing Wo Street (near the present site of the Sincere store) to Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei. Services operated between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily, at 15-minute or half-hourly intervals. In 1923 the Hongkong and Yaumati Ferry Company Limited was incor- porated and obtained the tender for running the ferry services after the Kaifong Company's franchise had expired. The company began operations with 11 small wooden vessels propelled by steam, the smallest being the Man Foo carrying 60 passengers. By com- parison the present Man Foo can accommodate 800 passengers in addition to 30 vehicles. A few weeks after the service began pirates seized one of the company's ferries off Stonecutters Island; subsequently it was intercepted in Chinese waters, near Macau, by the Macau Marine Police. As a precautionary measure for some time after this incident the ferry company stationed a picket boat off Stonecutters Island after nightfall.
The post-war years brought both social and economic problems. There was dislocation of world trade, depletion of shipping and shortage of commodities; scarcity of rice caused an almost four-fold increase in its price and the Government had to take over its pur- chase and distribution to check looting of rice stores. Labour unrest produced a series of strikes continuing until 1922, when a seamen's strike paralysed the harbour and spread to other branches of labour including domestic servants. The long-term effects of the war were profound but not immediately discernible. Few then realized that the Versailles Treaty had ushered in a changing world and that a new chapter in the Colony's history had opened. Hong Kong had been born in the early Victorian era as a military, com- mercial and administrative centre of expanding British trade with China; it provided conditions which China herself was unable to