AnnualReport-1913 — Page 3

HONGKONG.

REPORT ON THE BLUE BOOK FOR 1911.

COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE, HONGKONG, 22nd June, 1912.

SIR,

I have the honour to submit for Your Excellency's information the following general report on the Blue Book for the year 1911 :—

I.-FINANCES.

As the subject of the finances of the Colony for the year under review has been exhaustively dealt with in the Colonial Treasurer's report, which appears for the first time in the history of the Colony. it will be sufficient here to note that in 1911 the revenue amounted to $7,497,231, exceeding the estimate by $410,848, while the expenditure amounted to $7,077,177, or $308,143 less than the estimate. Thus the balance for the year's working was $420,05 1, bringing the balance of assets and liabilities up to $1,826,979 in the Colony's favour.

The total capital expenditure on the British Section of the Kow- loon-Canton Railway amounted on the 31st. December, 1910, to a sum of $11,884,427.76, and a further sum of $137,075.01 was added to the capital expenditure during 1911, making a total expenditure of $12,021,502.77 down to the end of last year. Additional expendi- ture will be necessary during 1912 for the construction of a terminal station and for the resumption of land on which to build it. The payments made up to the end of 1911 have more than exhausted the existing Railway Loan, and it is probable, therefore, that in 1912 a further loan will have to be raised.

The amount of the Consolidated Loan (Inscribed Stock Loans of 1893 and 1906) stands at £1,485,732 and in addition at the end of the year the advances by the Crown Agents for Railway Construc- tion amounted to £340,000. Against these items, however, should be placed the sum at credit of the Sinking Fund, vis., £118,267, and the sum of £440,000, being the unpaid balance of the loan to the late Viceroy at Wuchang.

The Defence Contribution paid during 1911 was $1,342,554.

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