75
Reference has been made from time to time, in this review of local history, to the birth of industrial activities. In any history of a place, its manufactures deserve a section to themselves, they mark the evolution of productive enterprise as distinct from mere trading. It is a pity that several of the Colony's most promising industries appear to have been shortlived, but they deserved to succeed, if only as encouragement to the pioneers who set them afoot.
We have seen in previous articles of this series how such enterprises, as breweries, ice-plants, sugar refineries and so forth, had their origin thirty, forty or fifty years ago, and met with fluctuating fortune. Few residents to-day would be able to state offhand whether such a modern convenience as briquettes had been manufactured locally in the earlier years of our history, but the fact is that a substantial company, with every prospect of success, was formed as long as forty-one years ago for the express purpose of providing these black "bricks" to the Colony's coal users.
I cannot do better than quote fairly extensively from contemporary files.
The Hongkong Telegraph of January 27, 1893, has the following write-up of a briquette factory which was to commence operations in Kowloon:
"This afternoon a small and select party visited the Charbonnages Company's new works in British Kowloon, the Superintendent Mr. Plant, doing the honours of the place with the utmost courtesy, explaining everything in fullest detail and adding information from his own extensive experience. He mentioned inter alia, that quite a large number of briquette factories like the one he is now putting up are in active and profitable operation in the North of England and in Scotland, and that there is every reason to anticipate that the Kowloon establishment will be as satisfactory as those at home, in which event it is intended ultimately to vastly augment the works, until in the end they have ten times the productive power of the present factory. Mr. Plant came out here in October last (per Sutley) and will remain until the erection is complete and the management can be handed over to a permanent superintendent probably about April next, if all goes well. Incidentally he remarked that he (like O'Brien) does not care very particularly much for Hongkong as a residential spot. But then, who does?
"The land on which the Charbonnages Company is building has been reclaimed from the sea, between the Naval Dockyard and the Gas Works. It covers about three acres of which one acre is being utilised for the initial tentative establishment. The reclamation was commenced in September 1892, and is now practically finished. In due course a quay will extend along the whole water front with a maximum depth of about 10 or 12 feet and a wharf is to be built out into deep water. However, this is still only prospective.
"At present the foundations of the factory are in, and the walls well above ground. The building will be of two storeys brick, with a big chimney already showing up. The latter when finished will be 66 feet high.