Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
COLONIAL REPORTS-ANNUAL.
(E.) LAND GRANTS AND GENERAL VALUE OF LAND.
The amount received from sales of Crown land was over $486,000, being some $24,000 less than the receipts for the previous year.
Building land in the urban portion of the Colony and in the Peak District is limited in extent and steadily increasing in value. The natural consequence is that house-rents, especially on the higher levels, have advanced to an extent probably unknown in other British Colonies.
III-LEGISLATION.
Sixteen Ordinances were passed during 1904, of which six were measures for the amendment of existing Ordinances. The most important measure was the Sugar Convention Ordinance (No. 14 of 1904) giving effect to Article VIII of the Brussels Sugar Convention, 1902. By the Hill District Reservation Ordinance (No. 4) a residential area is preserved at the Peak. The Opium Monopoly was further protected by an Ordinance (No. 10) controlling the importation and sale of compounds of opium. By the Pilots Ordinance (No. 3) provision was made for the examination and licensing of Pilots, who must be British subjects.
IV.-EDUCATION.
The number of Government and Grant Schools including Queen's College, is 81, of which 23 are Upper Grade Schools in which at least part of the staff is European, and 58 are Lower Grade Schools, under purely native management. Broadly speaking the Upper Grade Schools teach in English, and the Lower Grade Schools teach in the vernacular.
The total number of scholars in average attendance at Government and Grant Schools was 4,970. Of these, 1,665 were in Government and 3,305 in Grant Schools; 2,906 scholars received instruction in English, and 2,064 in the vernacular. The proportion of boys to girls was 3,236 to 1,734, or a little less than two to one.
A small Anglo-Chinese School was opened at Un Long in the New Territory early in 1904; and arrangements were made to open a new school for children of British parentage at Caroline Hill; East Point. The Kowloon School for children of similar