emigrating. In Melbourne and Sydney, every one admitted the persevering industry and sobriety of the Chinese, and the general cry was for Chinese labour, but no one seem disposed to import it. Trades unionism amongst the European Artisans and Servants tends in a great measure to keep Chinese labour out of the field.
21. I observed but few Chinese employed in conjunction with Europeans. Chinese were chiefly working on their own account, keeping shops, cultivating and selling vegetables; and in the towns they appeared to thrive and make money.
22. A visit to Ballarat, Creswick, Clunes and their neighbouring gold fields, enabled me to see the patience of the Chinese to its fullest extent. I found these people working in gangs of four or five, digging, washing, all at hard solid labour, working while it was daylight and having nothing but the most miserable luit, neither wind nor water-tight to retire to for the night. The earnings of these men averaged about three pounds sterling a month each. The fields on which they are allowed to seck for gold have generally been worked over twice or three times and have ultimately been deserted by European diggers, and it is the latter's refuse that Chinese are content to take. Chinese would be much better paid, housed, and fed as farm labourers, but many of them seemed to prefer the chance of finding something good and becoming rich more quickly than a labourer's savings will permit of
23. In newly discovered gold fields, a greater amount of success attends the digger's labour, but even there the Chinaman is not allowed to come near when the European thinks he will get gold. The Chinaman's secret of success is patience and perseverance combined with the strictest sobriety. Cooktown, which has sprung into existence since the discovery of gold in its neighbourhood, is still a town of wood and canvas. Here the Chinaman is seen to great perfection. He owns some of the principal shops in the place and by his attention to business, and care of his money when he has made it, he is amongst the most wealthy in the place. Chinese in North Queensland have many greater advantages than Europeans. The climate is better adapted to the former than to the latter, and they can work throughout the year, while Europeans are unable to do so.
24. Female emigration to l'enang and Singapore has increased by 110.69 per cent, and out of 15,158 Chinese despatched hence to the Straits Settlements nearly 14 per cent were females.
25. Out of 19,168 emigrants to California, scarcely 2 per cent are females. There are varied opinious as to whether the partial prohibition placed on the importation of Chinese females into the United States is a politic one. Doubtless the influx of a large number of unmarried women into a country is likely to be attended by highly immoral results, but with people having an intimate kuow- ledge of the Chinese character, it is a question whether it is not better not to disturb female emigration than to prohibit it, the result of the latter being much more horrible and disgusting than one likes to dwell on.
REGISTRY OF SHIPPING.
26. The usual average work has been done in this branch of the Department. The British Registry of Shipping at Shanghai has not been sufficiently long established to affect the registry of ships here.
MARINE MAGISTRATE'S COURT.
27. There is an increase on the cases tried in this Court in 1875 over 1874. None of the cases were of a serious nature.
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE POSTS OF MASTERS AND MATES, UNDER
ORDINANCE No. 17 OF 1860.
28. Of fifty-nine applicants for examination, 64.5 per cent obtained Certificates, 35.5 per cent being unsuccessful.
MARINE COURTS, UNDER ORDINANCE No. 11 OF 1860..
29. There have been five Courts held during the year. The Viking, Official Number 71,662, grounded on the Bombay Shoal in the China Sea, was got off and came to Hongkong. The Poyang, Official Number 50,661, lost during a typhoon near Macao in May last. The Zambesi, Official Num- ber 68,413, in collision with a Junk. The Deerhound, Official Number 60,508, lost in the China Sea in Latitude 10° 41′ North and Longitude 114° 30′ East. The Sunda, Official Number 54,737, struck a sunken rock about a mile and a half North of Turnabout Island and was beached at Station Island, Haitan Strait. The Sunda was ultimately brought to Hongkong.
SEAMEN.
30. 6,654 Seamen were shipped, and 6,741 were discharged in 1875, being an excess of 13.1 per cent in the first, and 14.2 per cent in the latter instance of the shipping and discharging of Seamen
in 1874.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
The Honourable J. GARDINER AUSTIN,
Colonial Secretary,
HONGKONG,
H. G. THOMSETT, R.N., Harbour Master, fe.