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Statement of Number of Emigrants to Straits Settlements, 1909 to 1918, compared with Total Chinese Emigration.
No. of Emigrants to Straits Settlements. Total No. of Emigrants. 1909, 48,016 76,296 1910, 77,430 68,275 1911, 76,705 82,797 1912, 111,058 117,653 1913, 100,906 63,292 1914, 135,565 96,298 1915, 84,024 39,196 1916, 122,657 43,830 1917, 102,353 ... 1918, 44,974 ...(6.)—INDUSTRIES.
(i.)—Under European Management.
Engineering and Shipbuilding.—The figures are as follows for the years 1917 and 1918—
1917 1918 Taikoo Dockyard and Eng. Co., Ltd., 4 vessels of 8,919 gross tons and 5,850 I.H.P. 2 vessels of 3,456 gross tons and 1,700 I.H.P. Hongkong & Whampoa Dock Co., Ld., 7 6 A King, 9 77 Sum Kee, 3 6 W. S. Bailey & Co., 14,954 112 5,489 150 9,400 96 > 17 11 27 2 56 1,723 21 > 65 1,030 105 > >1 17 J 5,810 200 42 > Total 26 vessels of 24,092 gross tons and 15,507 I.H.P. 17 vessels of 11,848 gross tons and 9,090 I.H.P. Kwong Tuck Cheong, Lau Sum Kee,.. 900 + 480Sugar Refineries. The year 1918 was remarkable for the unprecedented rise in the price of Java raw sugars—from less than f. 5.00 in July to about f. 12.50 in November. Demand in China was strong throughout the major portion of the year, but business was severely curtailed in the early summer through the tonnage restrictions imposed by the Authorities in Java. Thereafter imports were on a heavy scale, and China readily absorbed all available supplies of Hongkong Refineds, until the last two months of the year, when the increasing tightness of money, coupled with advances in rates, checked business very considerably. Demand from the Persian Gulf continued strong, but business bulked much less than in 1917 owing to the very restricted tonnage available, the greater part of the carrying being done by Japanese bottoms.
Cotton Yarn.—The influence of the war upon the Yarn trade (as upon all business) has been more acutely felt than ever during
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