4
3. There are a number of advisory boards and committees, such as the Board of Education, Harbour Advisory Committee, Labour Advisory Board, etc., composed of both official and unofficial members. They are frequently consulted and are of much assistance to the Government.
4. The English Common Law forms the basis of the legal system, modified by Hong Kong Ordinances of which an edition revised to 1923 has been published. The law as to civil procedure was codified by Ordinance No. 3 of 1901. The Colonial Courts of Admiralty Act 1890 regulates the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in Admiralty cases.
5. The daily administration is carried out by the twenty-eight Government departments, all officers of which are members of the Civil Service. The most important of the purely administrative departments are the Secretariat, Treasury, Secretariat for Chinese Affairs, Post Office, Harbour, and the Imports and Exports, Police, and Prisons departments. There are seven legal departments, including the Supreme Court and the Magistracies. Two departments, Medical and Sanitary, deal with public health; one, Education, with education; and one, the largest of all the Government departments, Public Works, is concerned with roads, buildings, waterworks, piers and analogous matters.
6. There have been no changes in the system of Government in the year under review.
## Chapter III.
## POPULATION AND BIRTHS AND DEATHS.
Variation in population in Hong Kong is more dependent on immigration and emigration than on births and deaths. Movements to and from the Colony are influenced by events in China and owing to the large numbers who come and go daily it is impossible to give more than a very rough estimate of the actual population, except during census years.
2. The following table shows the estimated population for the Colony for the middle of 1935.
Non-Chinese (mostly resident in Victoria and Kowloon) 21,370 Chinese in Victoria 377,659 Chinese in Hong Kong Villages 48,832 Chinese in Kowloon and New Kowloon 314,204 Chinese in junks and sampans 100,000 Chinese in New Territories 104,276 Total 966,341