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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841–1941
REPORTS EXHIBITING THE PAST AND PRESENT
Enclosure 12.
# MEMORANDUM on the JUNK TRADE of Hong Kong, during the Year 1851.
Victoria, Hong Kong, 20th January 1852,
Chinese Secretary's Office.
It was explained in a Memorandum of the 14th March 1850, upon this subject, that no information, at all reliable, could be obtained respecting the native Junk Trade in any anchorage except that of Victoria.
Monthly returns drawn up in the manner described in the same document show that in 1851 Victoria Harbour was visited by 1,004 Marine Junks, carrying sundry cargoes; an increase of nearly 20 per cent upon the monthly average of 1850.
The monthly returns of the salt monopoly state an import of 280,300 piculs of that article in 543 junks. The quantity is not above four fifths of the import of 1850, and the far greater number of salt junks can only be accounted for by the fact that much of the salt has been imported by vessels carrying a mixed cargo. These have doubtless been included by the salt monopolist in his total of salt junks.
In the stone trade there is a slight increase; the monthly returns of the stone monopoly showing an export of 565 cargoes from the Colonial quarries.
The subjoined table will give some idea of the monthly progress of the native trade during the year under review. The larger portion of it by far is done by junks from small towns and villages along the coast of the Kwang Tung Province, east of the Canton River. These send areca nut, betel leaf,
Marine Junks belonging to January February March April May June July August September October November December Total 1851 Tien-tsin 3 7 10 10 Fuh-kien Coast 22 38 26 32 22 114 Amoy 24,500 24,500 Formosa $$ $$ Kwang Tung East 81 23,800 36 23,809 30 21,200 19,700 21,700 24,500 #7 24,300 301 21,000 Canton 70 19,900 104 # 21,500 00 28,400 1 1 736 * Kuang Tung West 41 1 4 1,004 543 Hainan 09 09 40 Cochin China Siam Singaporo Penang Marine Junks Monthly total Monthly total of Salt Junks 543 Monthly total of Piculs Salt Imported 280,300 Monthly total of Stone Cargoes exported 565charcoal, cotton, cloth, crockery, and ready-made clothes, new and second-hand, drugs, dried fruit, dried meat, eggs, firewood, grass-cloth, hams, hardware, iron, lard, linseed, livestock, nankeen, oil, potato flour, pease, coarse paper, rice, sugar, saltfish, salt, skins, sugar canes, shoes, silk, soy, tobacco leaf, vegetables, fresh and salted, wine and wheat.
The junks from Canton and the coast west of it bring much the same cargoes. The latter, more properly speaking, belong to the districts along the west bank of the river.
The Tien-tsin junks brought rugs, cotton cloths, cotton, skins, deers horns, deers sinews, hams, dried fruits, pears, cabbages, pease, beans, wine, and drugs.
Those of the Fuhkien coast and Amoy, alum, camphor, coal, salt, and sulphur, cotton, cotton cloth, grass cloth, nankeen, sheep skins, shoes, bricks, tea, sugar candy, pease, beans, and potato flour.
A single junk from Formosa, coal and sulphur.
Those from Hai-nán, bark, wood, rattans, sandalwood, skins, drugs, soy, salt beef and mutton, salt, barley, beans, rice, oil, cocos nuts, areca nuts, live stock, dried fish, sharks fins, rock-suckers, and biche-de-mer.
The Cochin Chinese carried cloths, cotton yarns, rice, and drugs.
The three Siamese junks, nutmegs, Brazil wood, peppers, skins, areca nuts, bark, drugs, glasses, rattans, sandalwood, dried fish, rice, and biche-de-mer.
The four Singaporeans, the same, as also cotton yarns and opium.
The single Penang vessel, drugs, nutmegs, pepper, and sandalwood.
The Tien-tsin junks are said to take away opium in no small quantities, and much is of course carried in the Kwang Tung coast junks, some of which, belonging to the nearer ports, make as many as six voyages in the year to and from Hong Kong.
There is nothing to account for the great decrease of the salt imported. The stone trade is considerably above what it has been for the last two years, and the marine junk trade, which is of the chief consequence, better than it has been for the last three years; as will be seen by the following table :
Junks and Cargoes 1818 1840 1830 1851 Marine, average per month RO 524 73 €7 456 83 Salt Junks 297,950 335,358 345,830 543 Imported, piculs salt 777 432 467 280,300 Stone junks(Signed)
THOMAS WADE,
Assistant Chinese Secretary.