HISTORY
Initial Growth
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The new colony did not go well at first. It attracted unruly elements, fever and typhoons threatened life and property, and crime was rife. The Chinese influx was unexpected as it was not anticipated they would choose to live under a foreign flag. The population rose from 32,983 (31,463 Chinese) in 1851 to 878,947 (859,425 Chinese) in 1931.
The Chinese asked only to be left alone, and thrived under a liberal British colonial rule. Hong Kong became a centre of Chinese emigration and of trade with Chinese communities abroad. Ocean-going shipping using the port increased from 2,889 ships in 1860 to 23,881 in 1939. The dominance of the China trade forced Hong Kong to conform to Chinese usage and to adopt the silver dollar in 1862 as the cur- rency unit. In 1935, when China went off silver, Hong_Kong had to follow suit with an equivalent 'managed' dollar.
Hong Kong's administration followed the normal Crown Colony pattern, with a governor nominated by Whitehall and nominated Executive and Legislative Coun- cils with official majorities. The first unofficial members of the Legislative Council were nominated in 1850, and the first Chinese in 1880; the first unofficial members of the Executive Council appeared in 1896, and the first Chinese in 1926. Two electoral bodies, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and the Unofficial Justices of the Peace, were each allowed from 1885 onwards to nominate a member of the Legislative Council.
The British residents on a number of occasions strongly pressed for self-govern- ment, but the home government steadily refused to allow the Chinese majority to be subject to the control of a small European minority.
A Sanitary Board was set up in 1883, became partly elected in 1887, and developed into an Urban Council in 1936. The intention at first was to govern the Chinese through Chinese magistrates seconded from the mainland, but this system of two parallel administrations was only half-heartedly applied and broke down mainly because of the weight of crime. It was completely abandoned in 1865 in favour of the principle of equality of all races before the law. In that year the Governor's instruc- tions were significantly amended to forbid him to assent to any ordinance 'whereby persons of African or Asiatic birth may be subjected to any disabilities or restrictions to which persons of European birth or descent are not also subjected'. Government policy was laissez-faire, treating Hong Kong as a market place where all were free to come and go and where government held the scales impartially.
Public and utility services developed-the Hong Kong and China Gas Company in 1861, the Peak Tram in 1885, the Hong Kong Electric Company in 1889, China Light and Power in 1903, the electric Tramways in 1904 and the government-owned Kowloon-Canton Railway, completed in 1910. There were successive reclamations dating from 1851--notably one completed in 1904 in Central District, which produced Chater Road, Connaught Road and Des Voeux Road, and another in Wan Chai between 1921–9.