1887-1903
PAPERS RELATING TO H.M. COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
3
21
No. 77.
HONG KONG.
Administrator STEWART to LORD KNUTSFORD.
My Lord,
Government House, Hong Kong,
September 2, 1889.
I HAVE the honour to forward the Blue Book for 1888, and to express my regret that it has not been possible to send it earlier. There has been great pressure of work in the Colonial Secretary's Department, and I trust that your Lordship will on that account be good enough to overlook the delay.
2. The usual summary accompanies it, and beyond a few remarks on some of the more important headings I do not think it necessary to review the year at any considerable length.
3. The steady increase in the revenue, apart from premiums on land sales, is a source of much satisfaction. The increased value of the opium farm is one of the chief causes of the increase, but how far this may extend, and how long it may continue, is a subject of some uncertainty.
4. The steady increase in the revenue is accompanied by an equally steady increase in the expenditure, but the many public works which are urgently required for the development of the Colony will, for years to come, constitute a sufficient justification for the sums which will have to be spent on them. These public works, from causes with which your Lordship is acquainted, have not lately had the attention to which they are legitimately entitled, but when the re-organisation of the Surveyor-General's Department, now under consideration, has been completed, they will be pushed on with all possible energy. It is some satisfaction to think that the special contribution for defence works will soon terminate, and leave our resources available for the prosecution of works which the necessities of an increasing population imperatively demand.
5. Our local statutes were increased by 29 Ordinances during the year. Some of these are of considerable importance. The Vagrancy Ordinance will probably require amendment, as there has been much difficulty in fixing under it the responsibility which it was sought to cast upon owners and agents of vessels. It is a measure which cannot be lost sight of. From the peculiar circumstances of the Colony there is a constant tendency to throw upon...