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Hong Kong Annual Administration Reports, 1841-1941
14
Emigration and Immigration.
One hundred and forty thousand, five hundred and thirty-four (140,534) emigrants left Hong Kong for various places during the year 1925, (129,859 in 1924). Of these, 85,586 were carried in British ships, and 54,948 in foreign ships.
Ninety-one thousand, six hundred and twenty-two (91,622) returning emigrants were reported to have been brought to Hong Kong from the several places to which they had emigrated either from this colony or from coast ports, as against 130,194 in 1924. Of these, 51,700 arrived in British ships, and 39,862 in foreign ships.
Statement of number of emigrants to Straits Settlements, 1914 to 1925, compared with total Chinese emigration.
No. of Emigrants to Straits Settlements. Total No. of Emigrants. 1914 44,974 76,296 1915 41,278 68,275 1916 $2,797 117,653 1917 63,292 96,298 1918 8,019 43,830 1919 11,638 59,969 1920 43,935 105,258 1921 87,324 156,011 1922 50,356 98,393 1923 65,581 120,224 1924 75,682 129,839 1925 97,552 140,534(b.)-INDUSTRIES.
Sugar. The course of prices during the early part of the year was based on the expectation that the 1924-25 Cuban crop would outturn a figure somewhere between 4,300,000 tons and 4,725,000 tons, with a large part of the Trade being of the opinion that the latter figure would prove to be the maximum. Even when the production in Cuba indicated that 4,725,000 tons would be a minimum, for quite a long period many members of the Sugar industry throughout the world could not get themselves to believe that a record breaking crop as to size was being manufactured in Cuba and thought that a crop of 5 million tons would be an impossibility.
The final outturn of the 1924-25 Cuban crop was 5,125,970 tons, a burden that was quite too heavy for sugar prices to bear, as a result of which the trend in prices of raw sugar was in a downward direction from April to the end of October.