CO882-(1-2) — Page 402

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HONG KONG.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

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ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

IN Hong Kong public affairs are administered by a Governor, an Executive, and a Legislative Council, which last is composed of official people and of mer- chants. When Hong Kong was acquired from the Chinese, Great Britain necessarily had to support it. At first it cost us 49,000l. a-year, exclusive of the military charge; but by the application of a just and rigorous economy, aided by the gradual advance in commercial prosperity, the Parliamentary grant for the maintenance of its oivil establishment is no longer required.

The progress of the Colony is indeed undoubted, and the year 1855, which is the latest date up to which we have returos, more promising than any since the foundation of the Colony. Within the last eight years the population has more than trebled. A necessary and natural result of this increased population is the increase in trade, which is fostered by the wise and judicious absence of a Custom-house, in a place situated as Hong Kong is. As an instance, but perhaps a remarkable one, of the large trade now carried on there, a merobant in 1855, sold the whole of his ship's cargo, to the value of 80,000 dollars, in the course of a single morning. Hong Kong has become a great port for Chinese emigra- tion; as many as 14,683 emigrants having left it in And this business is on the increase. The salubrity of the Colony, owing to the care taken in the drainage, sewerage, &c., in improving, nor has there, of late, been any special mortality beyond what increased population will account for.

1855.

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