of the island. The rent of houses and shops is at present low enough to enable whoever carries on a middling trade to lodge his family, yet very few decent married females reside here. In this respect there has been very little improvement during the last year.
The importation of sugar from Tae-ping and other places was considerable during the last year, as the growers were able to sell it here cheaper on account of not paying export duties than it was at Canton, and hence this branch of commerce had many procurable sales. This will mainly depend upon the prices for which it can be brought to Hongkong and the amount it will fetch at home. Should the crops...
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might compete with slave sugar, for work is cheap, and an acre planted with sugar-cane yields even at reduced prices more profits than a rice field. There is a great demand for this commodity in the northern provinces, so that the prices never can go below a certain level. The Government are rather opposed to the extension of the culture, lest paddy, the staff of life, and vegetables might be grown in smaller quantities. The foreign exportations constitute up to this time not one hundredth part of the home consumption, and have not yet materially affected the market.
Neither camphor, rhubarb, nor teas have been more abundant this season than last. There can be no doubt but the importation in 1849 will be larger. With a richer kind of cane, which is here thin and very juiceless, and good machinery, the Chinese might produce sugar fit for the European market. All those who speculated in these articles have lost, and this is the reason for their abstaining from any further attempts.
It was owing to the small demand that the first cargoes could not find ready purchasers,