mittee which I appointed to enquire into the extent to which foreign imports have displaced, or are displacing, similar British goods in this Colony, and the causes of such displacement, as well as the question of the transit trade of Hongkong affecting British and Foreign products.
In spite of the difficulties which such an enquiry necessarily presented owing to Hongkong being a free port, the Committee has succeeded in collecting and arranging a mass of useful and suggestive information from which it appears that a steady though not strikingly large displacement of British goods has been taking place for some years, but that not many great staples have been seriously affected. The competition of Japan, however, threatens to become serious.
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