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clubs. The graduation fee is $25. Probably about $1,200 repre- sents the minimum amount which at present prices would cover a student's annual expenses including vacations. It would cost a Chinese student who goes abroad $2,500 a year at the very least and this would not cover travelling expenses.
Numerous scholarships are available, including the King Edward VII Scholarships founded by His Majesty's Government.
There are also scholarships provided by the Governments of Hong Kong, of the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States, of Kedah and Siam.
The Union is the centre of the social life of the students. It is at once a Club and a centre of athletics. The Union Committee contains certain memebrs of the University teaching staff, but its President and Secretary are undergraduates elected by the under- graduates. The undergraduate members of the Committee are also elected by their fellow students. There is a Union magazine with English and Chinese sections. The editors are students, a member of the teaching staff acting as assistant editor. There are twenty- one women students; these women students are all members of the Union.
Students of the University come from Kwangtung, Chihli, Hankow, Hupeh, Yunnan, Hunan, Shanghai. Pekin, Fukien, Singapore. Penang, Kuala Lumpur. Kedah. Jahore, Java, Manila, Burma, Siam, Japan, India and Macao. The present enrolment is 300 of whom 251 are Chinese and 49 non-Chinese.
X.-Lands and Surveys.
LAND GRANTS AND GENERAL VALUE OF LAND.
1. (1) Sales of Crown Land and Pier rights (exclusive of the New Territories) during 1927 produced $107,633.63 a decrease of $144,897.32 on the preceding year, and $1,597,985.80 less than the average of the previous five years.
(2). Sales of Crown Land and Pier rights in the New Territories produced $32.741.21 an increase of $6,649.42 on the preceding year, and $213.330.91 less than the average of the previous five years.
(8). The average decrease is explained by the fact that the years 1922, 1923, and 1924 were boom years followed by a severe slump from which the Colony has not yet fully recovered.
2. The total area of land leased during the year was 454 Acres 3 Roods and 26-1/5 Poles being 931 Acres 3 Roods and 15 Poles less than in 1926.
3. (1). The total area resumed (including Re-entries and Surrenders) was 584 Acres and 2-4/5 Poles a decrease of 1481 Acres 2 Roods and 31-3/5 Poles on 1926,
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(2). Non-fulfilment of Building Covenants (owing to financial depression) necessitated Re-entry on over 90 Acres in the Colony.
4. The Village development continues in the Northern District of the New Territories but there was little or no fresh development in semi-urban areas.
SURVEYS.
An Aerial Survey of the Colony was undertaken in 1924 and the ground work necessary to enable new maps of the Colony to be published was completed in 1927,
The Geological Survey of the Colony was continued by Dr. Brock, Dean of the Faculty of Geology, University of British
Columbia.
XI.-Labour.
The Illegal Strikes and Lock-outs Ordinance, No. 10, was based on the English Trades Disputes and Trade Union bill, which became law in England on the 29th July, 1927 The Hong Kong Ordinance became law on the 8th July, 1927.
FACTORIES.
The ordinance regulating the employment of children in factories has now been in force for five years and it may not be out of place to survey briefly the results attained. This ordinance (No. 22 of 1922) was the first piece of constructive factory legislation introduced into this Colony and to the Chinese factory owners was an entirely new departure. In the earlier stages a large number of the younger children were dismissed from the factories, the owners finding it casier to dispense with child labour than to comply with the requirements of the ordinance as to hours of work, overtime and holidays. The children so dismissed have not been replaced and it - now admitted that the absence of child labour need not affect output. In factories where children have been retained the conditions of the ordinance have been accepted without serious objection. No European firms in the Colony employ children under the age of 15 years and the total number of children employed has been reduced until at present there are not more that one hundred and fifty children under that age regularly at work in factories. This large reduction is partly accounted for by the depression in the knitting trade and cigarette factories. No new beginners have been taken on during the year and many of these who have hitherto been registered under the ordinance have now outgrown the age of registration. The cigarette factories which formerly employed a large number of voung girls were closed for a considerable part of the year: production has now been resumed but on a limited scale and where formerly 160 children were engaged in packing cigarettes there are now but 15 at work. Apart from the cigarette trade the knitting factories of Kowloon are the principal employers of women and girls. Some of these have closed down during the year: others have found
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