58
J. T. KAMM
TABLE II: Tax as a Percentage of Rent Value Un Long, Hsin-An Hsien; Ch'ing
Piculs Memorial No. Rent Rent (Government) Tax Tax/rent 28603 15.70 14.66 .26 1.8% measure 28610 13.33 4.40 28621 4.00 5.97 .11 28623 5.40 17.62 28625 16.02 7.15 .13 ཧྲྰི ཌཤཱ .08 1.8% 1.9% .32 1.8% 28626 6.20 6.82 .12 1.8% 28627 15.70 17.27 .31 1.8%Population growth: Evidence suggests a steady influx of Hakka settlers into the county during the middle years of the eighteenth century. These immigrants populated the whole of Hong Kong, Lantao, and Tsing Yi islands, as well as substantial parts of the Kowloon and Sai Kung peninsulas.10 The migration of Hakkas into the coastal region was part of a larger demographic movement initiated "under the joint patronage of the state and local men of substance." These immigrants formed a substantial portion of the tenant population; before the migration tapered off in the early years of the nineteenth century, as many as 50,000 Hakkas may have settled in the county.12
The major determinant underlying the relative prosperity of late-Ch'ing Hsin-An was the presence of perpetual tenancy as the dominant mode of land tenure in the agricultural sector.* The remainder of this essay will be devoted to an analysis of the specific characteristics of perpetual tenancy in Hsin-An. This analysis will be elaborated within the general framework which treats perpetual tenancy as a system of relations based on the division of land into distinct values, each governed by separate modes of production (extraction) and circulation.
*This is not to suggest that perpetual lease was the only determinant of relative prosperity. Population growth and market increases were clearly inter-related and mutually casual. Perpetual lease is primary in the sense that it "creates" the conditions for both.