150
16
Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
COLONIAL REPORTS-ANNUAL.
commenced and it is generally reported that better prices are obtained than in the previous year.
There has been a considerable number of sales of small building sites for native dwellings and industries in the New Territories where, except in the districts easily accessible to the City of Victoria, land is generally sold at the price of one cent per square foot with an annual Crown Rent at the rate of $50 or $100 per acre according to locality. With the opening up of the Territory by the Railway and the new roads now being constructed, the demand is likely to increase.
There has also been a considerable increase in the amount of waste or uncultivated lands let on annual or short term leases. This system has been adopted to meet the frequent demands of cultivators in the New Territories, who were unable or unwilling to pay a premium for a long lease.
The whole of the extensive oyster beds in Deep Bay formerly held on annual permits have now been granted on leases for 21 years to the occupiers, special stipulations being inserted in the leases for the proper working of the beds.
III-LEGISLATION.
Forty-six Ordinances were passed during 1909. This number has only once been exceeded in the history of the Colony, namely in 1902, when 47 Ordinances were passed. But of the 1902 Ordinances no less than ten were for the naturalization of certain persons, a matter which, under the Ordinance relating to the Naturalization of Aliens (No. 44 of 1902), no longer requires legislation in each case. Thirty-two of the 1909 Ordinances were Amendment Ordinances. The laws relating to opium were consolidated (No. 93), and the law as to trade marks was recast (No. 40). Ordinances were also passed to regulate the construction and management of railways (No. 21); to authorize the construction and maintenance of a harbour of refuge, the necessity for which was demonstrated by the disastrous typhoon of 1906, at Mong-kok-tsui, in Kowloon, (No. 39); to provide for the periodical inspection of steam boilers and prime movers (No. 32); and to provide for the collection of duties upon intoxicating liquors (No. 27).
IV.-EDUCATION.
There are 71 Government and Grant Schools, the most important of which is Queen's College. Of these 22 are Upper Grade Schools with a staff competent to give instruction on all subjects of the 7th Standard, and above. These latter schools have an average attendance of 4,337, and the medium of instruction in all of them with the exception of five girls' schools, is English. The 49 remaining schools are all Lower Grade. They