148
LIN SHU-YEN
1939 “A slight (unspecified) fall in the output compared with 1938" A very successful year as a result of a large increase in price.
Some general figures for the New Territories salt-industry before 1912, not specifically related to Tai O, are given in G. N. Orme's "Report on the New Territories 1899-1912" (para. 71) to be found in the H.K. Government's printed Sessional Papers for 1912. They are as follows:
1900 30 cents a picul.
1908 $1.20 a picul: "salt makers came in for large profits".
1912 70 cents a picul: decrease "chiefly owing to imports from the Northern Coasts".
Orme lists 37 acres of salt pans at Tai O, 32 at Castle Peak, 12 at Shun Wan near Tai Po and less than one acre at Sha Tau Kok. However, at Tai O at least, the area under production at that time was not the total acreage laid out for the purpose. At the survey and land settlement conducted a few years after 1899 a total of 107.07 acres was recorded as salt-pans. These were then (1903-04) five pans, the largest 37.39 acres and the smallest 5.66 acres. The area under production was, it appears, usually less than the total and would vary according to the demand for salt, and the market price. These details are taken from the Block Crown Lease and Survey Sheets in the District Office South.
There is an interesting passage on the manufacture of salt in the New Territories and the uses to which both it and imported salt was put at that time in Colonial Reports Annual, No. 314 Hong Kong, Report for 1899 (London, HMSO, 1901);
"Salt is manufactured at four places in the New Territory, the yearly output being about 4,466 tons, worth some $16,000, which in part supplies the local demands of the population, the fishing junks which keep the fish they catch while at sea in brine, and the various fishing stations where fish is salted and dried. A much larger quantity is, however, imported at certain places for the use of the fleets of fishing junks. The imported salt is also largely used for the salting and drying of fish, for which purpose it seems to be preferred to the locally manufactured salt. The manufacture of salt is an industry which is likely to increase and develop in the New Territory, and which is worthy of being