16
Occupation Permits Issued and Premises Demolished during 1938,—contd.
Occupation Permits. Premises Demolished. Chinese tenement houses. European type houses. 1936 1938 Kowloon 64 (237 Flats.) 41 Kowloon 41 Hong Kong 39 (152 Flats.) 44 co 3 103 85 Hong Kong 69 4 110 7 1937 Kowloon 18 2 Hong Kong 154 16 172 18 1938 Kowloon 14 2 Hong Kong 15 H 29 6 CoChapter VI.
NATURAL RESOURCES.
The natural products of the Colony of Hong Kong are few and, by comparison with those of other Colonies, unimportant in the general economy of the Empire. Agriculture and the fisheries are, however, the sole means of support of a large percentage of the poorer classes and, to this extent, are essential to the economic life of the community. The labouring classes of the urban population are employed in a variety of small industries, and in the shipyards and docks where ocean-going vessels are built and repaired. The shipyards employ almost as many male workers as all the other smaller industries put together and for this reason shipbuilding is treated of in the present chapter so as to allow comparison with the two other main forms of occupation mentioned above.
Mining is in its early stages. There is good reason to believe that workable deposits are present in practicable quantities but the pursuit of mining is not indigenous to the native Chinese and development at the moment seems to be waiting upon the investment of capital and recognition by large-scale enterprise.
The Colony's forestry resources are not sufficient for commercial exploitation. Afforestation has been in progress for many years, directed mainly towards the conservation of rainfall and the prevention of erosion of the bare hills in which the Colony abounds.