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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
STATE OF HER MAJESTY'S COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
Public Works.
Almost all these works are either completed, or in rapid progress, with the exception of a Government House not yet commenced. A good road of 24 miles now completes the circuit of the island, much of it cut through granite rocks, at a total cost of about 20,000l. There are military posts at an average distance of six miles from each other, and the facilities and security which all these works afford have produced a marked effect on the population of the island.
The handsome colonial church is in a state of rapid progress, as well as the public offices, intended to concentrate the principal Civil Departments, and to include the Treasury and Records. A very substantial and commodious court-house, at a cost of 5000l, does away with the payment of 375l. annual rent for a temporary building.
The usual reports from the Surveyor-General on the Public Works during 1847, and on the progress of his department, are annexed to the Blue Book.
Military Expenditure.
In the return made to me of the Military Expenditure of the last year, I am glad to see a reduction, as compared with the preceding one, of about 26,000l. The principal military works have been an extensive cutting for the parade ground, some considerable buildings for ordnance stores, and the commencement of a main-guard house.
Legislation.
Among the ordinances which have been enacted during the past year by the Legislative Council, the most important, perhaps, is that which extends the ordinary summary jurisdiction of the police magistrates, with reference principally to the Chinese population. This ordinance had been originally drafted (see Despatch No. 108, of 12th September, 1846), with a view to mitigate the inconveniences arising from a vacation of nearly six months between the summer and winter sessions of the Supreme Court; but even when this had been remedied, and the longest vacation reduced to three months, the peculiar habits and character of the Chinese population required that the smaller felonies, such as larcenies to a trifling amount, "should be dealt with summarily by the magistrate, instead of being reserved, as in England, for a jury. With reference to the same population, accustomed universally to corporal punishment, instead of long imprisonment, it became necessary to adopt the same mode of punishment under proper limitations and safeguards as to its nature and amount. It had been found from experience that an English prison afforded them the three principal necessaries of life in a degree to which many of them had been strangers, and, in fact, tempted them to commit small crimes for the sake of being imprisoned.
Both the chief magistrate and the superintendent of police have reported most favourably on the working of this ordinance in diminishing the amount of crime.
With reference to the Government of British subjects at the five ports of China, I have added to the efficacy of the criminal jurisdiction of the Consuls, by merely adopting in the Consular Ordinance No. 2, of 1847, the provisions of an order by Her Majesty in Council for the Government of British subjects in the Levant.
I have anticipated the wish of a Committee of the House of Commons on China affairs in June last, that the jurisdiction of the Consuls over civil suits should be extended beyond 500 dollars, by Consular Ordinance No. 3, of 1847, which enacts, that the Consuls, with certain assessors, shall have jurisdiction over all civil suits whatever, subject to an appeal to the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, with the further appeal to the Privy Council in all cases above 500l.
Population.
The population return for 1847 is beyond the amount of any former year, being 23,872, exclusive of troops. At the same time that the number of the Chinese has increased, their respectability and fixedness of residence have advanced, as proved by the increased number of dwellings, and the progress, especially, of the out-station of Aberdeen. The road now completed round the island renders them independent of water carriage, by which they were formerly exposed to robbery and piracy; something must also be attributed to the working of the improved Registry Ordinance, under which only householders are registered (instead of individuals) and made in some degree responsible for their inmates. An increase