Extract from :-
Orig. regoh on 18885/6/404
FAR EASTERN WEEKLY INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY
No.62 for week ending 17.3.44.
SECRET.
Ref. FE.80/3/5/2.
X
X
X
14.
HONG KONG
Information from other sources: –
1.
A census was taken by the Japanese authorities in January 1943. The published figures are compared below with those for 1936:-
Hongkong Civil Population 1936 and 1943.
1936
1943
thousands
Chinese Population.
Hong Kong Island
433
442
Kowloon and water population
428
400
New Territories
106
129
Non-Chinese Population.
22
989
།།
11
982
By
1936 may be considered as the last normal year for population figures as by the next year refugees were already flowing into the colony owing to the unrest caused by the "China Incident" on the mainland. 1941 these refugees had almost doubled the 1936 population but they have now been expelled from the colony by the Japanese. The people of Hongkong depended for their livelihood mainly upon its status as a "free" port subject to few customs duties. The harbour was the centre of a huge entrepôt trade with all parts of the Far East, which made it one of the first half-dozen ports of the world, on a par with Singapore, Hamburg and Rotterdam. Even by 1940, however, Japanese interference on the mainland had brought down its shipping movements to half the 1936 figure. To-day, with about the same population as eight years ago, this
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