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HISTORY
oppression the bulk of the community remained loyal to the allied cause: Chinese guerillas operated in the New Territories and allied personnel escaping were assisted by the rural population.
Soon after the news of the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945, was received. a provisional government was set up by the Colonial Secretary, Mr (later Sir) F. Gimson, until Rear Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt arrived on August 30 with units of the British Pacific Fleet to establish a temporary military government. Civil govern- ment was formally restored on May 1, 1946, when Sir Mark Young resumed his interrupted governorship.
The Post-war Years
From the moment of liberation, Hong Kong began a spectacular recovery. The Chinese returned at a rate approaching 100,000 a month and the population, which by August 1945 had been reduced to about 600,000, rose by the end of 1947 to an estimated 1,800,000. Then in the period 1948–9, as the forces of the Chinese Nationalist Government began to face defeat in civil war at the hands of the communists, Hong Kong received an influx of people unparalleled in its history. About three quarters of a million, mainly from Kwangtung province, Shanghai and other commercial centres, entered Hong Kong during 1949 and the spring of 1950. By the end of 1950 the population was estimated to be 2,360,000. Since then it has continued to rise and the 1971 census put the population at 3,948,179.
After a period of economic stagnation, caused by American trade barriers against China which applied temporarily to Hong Kong and by further sanctions against China resulting from the Korean War of 1951, Hong Kong entered an era of indus- trialisation. As an entrepôt, Hong Kong had earned a livelihood by a service she alone could perform: now she found herself directly competing with other manufacturing
centres.
The immigrants formed a huge reservoir of labour, industrious, trainable for the necessary skills, with no tradition of trade union restrictive practices and all looking for jobs.
From the start, the industrial revolution was based on cotton textiles, gradually adding woollens and, in the late 1960s, man-made fibres and made-up garments. In 1959, 42 per cent of Hong Kong's total domestic exports were textiles and clothing, compared with 50 per cent in 1972, showing the continued dominance of textiles in Hong Kong's economy. Older light industries expanded, including rattanware, torches and rubber shoes, while new industries developed such as optics, transistor radios and television sets, watches and clocks, stainless steel flatware, wigs and plastics, including artificial flowers. All needed labour as a principal factor of production.
In 1959, the first year they were separated from re-exports, domestic exports were valued at $3,277.54 million. In 1972 they had increased by more than 500 per cent. Re-exports declined in relative importance but remained significant, comprising 30 per cent of total exports in 1959 and 20 per cent in 1972.
At first Hong Kong catered for cheap Asian markets, such as Malaya and In- donesia, but in 1972, 85 per cent of her goods went to developed countries, with the