8 ) Ireland: before the famine, it involves the danger that being the sole resource of the mass of the people, if it fails there is nothing behind. With so large a market as Hong Kong I see no reason why a paying cattle industry should not be established. There is no water power to speak of, the rain running off the treeless hills at once. With the hills clothed with Pine, Camphor, and other trees, the climate and possibilities of the new area would be modified.
7. One of our most serious difficulties at present is the apparent unhealthiness of the entire territory. It may be that the position chosen for the mat-shed barracks and quarters for the Police have not been the best. They were chosen with great care on the summits of low hills that raise themselves about a hundred feet above the valleys. But almost every European and Indian employed in the new territory has been down with Malarial fever. Mr. Messer, who so far had enjoyed excellent health, has now succumbed, just as he was entering upon the important work of land registration, and has been removed to Hospital in Hong Kong. One station temporarily established in the village of Feng-Shan has suffered less than the others. I am having a return made of every case of sickness so that we may consider ...
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