16
REPORT ON
The expense of establishments, the high rate of interest of money, and the want of trade, will, it is said, probably ere long compel the removal or breaking up of several of the small houses. There is scarcely a firm in the island but would, I understand, be glad to get back half the money they have expended in the colony, and retire from the place*. A sort of hallucination seems to have seized those who built houses here. They thought that Hong Kong would rapidly "outrival Singapore," and become "the Tyre or Carthage of the eastern hemisphere." Three years' residence, and the experience thence derived, have materially sobered some of their views. Unfortunately, the Government of the colony fostered the delusion respecting the colony. The leading Govern- ment officers bought land, built houses or bazars, which they rented out at high rates, and the public money was lavished in the most extraor- dinary manner, building up and pulling down temporary structures, making zig-zag bridle-paths over hills and mountains, and forming the Queen's Road," of from three to four miles long, on which about 180,000 dollars have been expended, but which is not passable for half the year.
*
56
The straggling settlement called Victoria," built along the "Queen's Road," was dignified with the name of "City" and it was declared on the highest authority, that Hong Kong would contain a population equal to that of Ancient Rome." The Surveyor-General, in an official report to his relative Sir Henry Pottinger, of twenty- two pages, dated 6th July, 1843, proposed building an entirely new town or " city" in the Woonichung Valley, (which may
be aptly called the "Valley of Death,") with a grand canal and many branch canals, &c. Two ranges of terraces of houses, &c.; courts of law, and various other offices; acclimatizing barracks; additions to the present govern- ment house, for the secretaries and personal staff of the Governor, isolated from all other buildings; a space of land to be reclaimed from the sea for a public landing-place, with an esplanade or public walk; a magnificent promenade of four miles, to be made on ground now cov- ered by the sea, which was to be excluded by a sea wall, at a cost of 35 dollars per lineal yard, exclusive of filling in, &c.† ; a circular road over hills and ravines round the entire island, &c., &c., adapted for carriages, and for moving troops with speed and facility to any part of the island, where they may happen to be required for the protection of the different villages! (these villages, be it remembered, containing nothing but a few hundreds of a thieving piratical population). I refer to the Government archives for full details of these and other most
* "The respectable Parsee firm whose extensive premises near Messrs. Dent and Co., are now nearly finished, have determined not to remove to Hong Kong; others, who contemplated settling here, have changed their minds and remain at Macao. Two English firms, within three months, have abandoned the island, confining their operations to Canton; and of the several new firms established within the past six months, none of them has even an office in Hong Kong. There is now positively less actual trade than we had two years ago, and the little that exists is decreasing."-(" Friend of China," editorial article, Hong Kong, 18th June, 1845.)
"It is much to be feared that unless very different measures are speedily adopted, this colony, as a place of commerce, will be utterly ruined.”—(Ibid.)
+ 246,500 dollars.
1
HONG KONG,
17
ridiculous projects, involving a vast expenditure of public money, which none but the wildest theorists, or self-interested persons, could have projected or entertained. On the 17th December, 1843, the Surveyor- General laid before Sir Henry Pottinger the elevation of a building for a Government office, &c., with a front of 360 feet in length, by 50 feet in depth, and which would probably cost £30,000 sterling. There seemed to be the greatest possible desire to spend a large part of the Chinese indemnity money on this wretched, barren, unhealthy and useless rock, which the whole wealth, talent, and energy of England would never render habitable, or creditable, as a colony, to the British name.* illustration of the mode in which the public money was proposed to be spent, I give the following, which is a portion of the estimate of public works in Hong Kong for 1844, and which Sir Henry Pottinger trans- mitted to England for approval :-
Completion of Queen's-road from West Point to the East
side of Woongnichung Valley
Ditto to go-downs of Jardine and Co. New street formation in Victoria Sewers in Victoria
Carried forward
In
Dollars.
28,000
15,000
35,000
100,000
178,000
* No outlay of money would ever maintain roads in the island, even if it were supposed necessary to make roads over rotten granite and decayed sandstone moun- tains filled with huge boulder-stones. The "Hong Kong Register" of 13th May, 1845, thus describes the effect of one of the usual heavy rain-falls, which took place 7th May, 1845, and lasted only a few hours:-"The damage was very great, both to the recently-formed roads and to many buildings in the course of erection; and had the violence of the rain continued an hour or two longer, many houses must have been undermined and destroyed. As it was, much individual inconvenience has been sustained. About 5 o'clock, the whole of the Queen's-road, from the entrance to the large bazaar to the market-place, was completely flooded, to the depth of from two to four feet. All the streets leading upwards to the hill served as feeders to this lake. In Peel-street, particularly, the torrent rushed along, bearing everything before it, and the street still resembles a dried-up watercourse, covered with stones and wrecks of buildings. The passages from the Queen's-road to the sea were all full. The one leading through Chunam's Hong for hours pre- sented the appearance of a rapid river, and many of the houses on each side were only saved from the flood by mud walls hastily raised. About 6 o'clock the rain moderated, but for some time after the road was quite impassable. A Coolie, attempting to ford the stream rushing down D'Aguilar-street, was borne off his feet, but saved himself by coming against the frame of a mat-shed. The drain lately formed could not nearly receive the supply of water, which committed great devastation, flooding a new house in its vicinity to the depth of nearly three feet, and carrying away some new walls. All the open drains in the upper streets have suffered; many are entirely destroyed, leaving scarcely a trace of the street. stream from a distant watercourse flowed along the road above the bungalow occu- pied by the Attorney-General, and descending with great fury upon the roof of one of his out-offices, carried away a great part of it. In many places the Queen's road has been covered with soil, sand, &c., to the depth of more than two feet, and nearly all the cross-drains are choked up. The bridge at the Commissariat has been carried away, and that in the Wong-nai-chung has also disappeared. Several lives were lost by the fall of a house in which some Chinese resided; and it is said the stream at Pokfowlum burst upon a mat hut in which were a number of Coolies employed upon the new road; three saved themselves in a tree, but many more are missing, and supposed to be carried out to sea."
A
C
472