-2-
99
(5)
I think it desirable, in order that the conclusions to which I have arrived may be the better understood, that I should first of all set out, as briefly as possible, the nature of the problem as it presented itself to me.
(6)
Historical background. The historical background of the Port is not an extensive one. It appears that, in the third decade of the last century, the island now known as Hong Kong was a place of small consequence inhabited by a few fishermen, stonecutters and farmers, and it was a notorious hiding place for smugglers and pirates. In 1841 it was taken by British forces partly as a reprisal for the bad treatment of British merchants in Canton and partly to provide a base from which trading might be carried on with merchants in South China. The cession of the island to Great Britain was confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking in August, 1842.
(7)
The Convention of Peking in 1860 added the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island to the Colony, while, under a further convention of 1898, the area known as the New Territories, including Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, was leased to Great Britain for a period of 99 years.
(8)
Government in relation to the Harbour. The Government
of the Colony is administered by a Governor aided by an Executive Council and a Legislative Council, there being various departments dealing respectively with such matters as finance, the administration of justice, public health, public works, education, police and so on.
(9) The Harbour is not run as a separate department, the engineering side of it being a sub-department or section of the department of Public Works. The control of navigation within the Port is under the Harbour Master whose department is a
separate one, but his functions are wider than those usually
performed by a Harbour Master, as he is also apparently
Emigration Officer, Superintendent of Mercantile Marine,