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Illicit Distilleries gave considerable trouble during the year. Two very active centres of illicit distilling were discovered, one in the tiny village of Tai Pak and the adjoining ravines in the Northern part of Lantao Island facing Hong Kong, the other by the efforts of the Police in and near the village of Wong Toi Sha near Kam Tin in the Northern part of the New Territory.
Near Tai Pak no fewer than twelve illicit stills were found at various times, of which all except one were in ravines concealed behind rocks and brushwood. Special boilers had been built up beside streams and rather primitive methods adopted for condensing the spirit; fermenting material was concealed amongst the brushwood in the vicinity of the stills. The persons implicated escaped over the hills in all except one case when an arrest was made by a Police launch. This centre was most persistent in their efforts to work illicit stills, and it required several visits both by the Police and Revenue launches to break it up. From enquiries made it appeared that the spirit made was disposed of to the adjacent islands of Pingchow and Cheung Chow, and that the workers came from Yuenlong by junk and brought their own materials with them. Search of the huts in the vicinity failed to discover any yeast or sugar, or an excess stock of rice. A mixture of rice and sugar was chiefly used, giving a strong fermentation.
At Wong Toi Sha the Police had great difficulty in locating the stills, if the still was located it would not be in the same place as the fermenting material, or the supply of yeast and red rice used for fermenting. The still head of the usual country type made of earthenware was possibly in some cases hired out to anyone who fermented material which required distilling. Careful search failed to find the number of stills corresponding to the number of illicit distilleries found. This group were making genuine rice spirit. The Police were successful in obtaining several convictions as the result of all-night work.
4. The Brewery at Sham Tseng, New Territories, operated by the Hong Kong Brewers and Distillers, Ltd., commenced placing beer on the market in July. The product is of a Pilsener type brewed and matured at a low temperature.
At first brewing was conducted in bond, but as this was found inconvenient to the working of the brewery, an arrangement was made by which duty was paid weekly on all brewings which took place during the 9th preceding week. This arrangement has been found to work well in practice.
5. It is impossible in the case of spirituous liquors and spirits of wine used largely for compounding scents and medicines to make any comparison with the figures for 1932, since the rates of duty were changed twice during that year. On the whole it appears that the reduction in duty was in no way