3
of the East India Company, whose monopoly expired in 1831, and the unsuccessful official missions, were united in 1834 by the arrival of Lord Napier in Canton as His Majesty's Chief Superintendent of Trade.
Lord Napier's efforts at improving relations with the Chinese authorities for the benefit of British trade resulted in conspicuous failure and he died in Macao in October, 1834. Captain Elliot R.N. succeeded him as Chief Superintendent and for five years negotiations were intermittently continued while the position of the British merchants became more unbearable. The ultimate result of this protracted period of undeclared hostilities was the withdrawal of British merchant ships to Hong Kong Bay, a blockade of the Canton River in 1840 and the peaceful occupation of Hong Kong Island in January, 1841.
The cession of the island to Great Britain was confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking in August, 1842. The history of the Colony thereafter is one of uninter-rupted peaceful development. The Convention of Peking of 1860 added the Kowloon peninsula and Stonecutters' Island to the Colony, and under a further Convention of Peking signed in 1898, the area known as the New Territories, including Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, was leased to Great Britain for a period of ninety-nine years.
Nearly a century has passed since the bare unproductive hills were first occupied and the gangs of law-breakers evicted from their shelter. Afforestation, extensive reclamation of the foreshore, cultivation of the lower slopes, and a network of motor roads cut into the hills have combined with the steady growth of the city itself to present to the ocean-going ships which lie in Hong Kong waters to-day a very different picture from that which met the first merchantmen who watered off the south-west coast of the island. Sanitation, anti-malarial work, and public health administration have removed all evidence of the 'plague spot' which the new Colony was thought to be. The administration of the Colony usually has been serene and untroubled. One of the world's great harbours has been developed out of the enclosed waters between Lyemoon and Green Island. The freedom of the port has been maintained and no restrictions are placed on the entrance or egress of the Chinese population. This policy has preserved for the Colony the rôle which it was intended to fulfil in 1841 that of an entrepôt for the trade and labour of the southern provinces. It has had the effect too of establishing Hong Kong as an impartial refuge, both for persons and capital, during the internecine struggles which followed the inauguration of the Chinese Republic in 1911, and through the more recent misfortunes of the Chinese people. A railway which passes through the centre of China and a road from Canton debouch upon the line of wharves where the world's shipping collects. Five airlines, from China, Europe and America, terminate in the airport. Ship-building yards on the eastern side of the harbour have laid down keels for ships of 11,000 tons, and the docks can accommodate the largest of the Pacific liners. Small industries have sprung up and flourished in the east of the island and in Kowloon. Cement, rope, glass, cigarettes, cigars, matches, paper, lard, electric torches and batteries, rubber-shoes and piece-goods are now exported widely. Market-produce, cereals, poultry and live-stock are brought in daily from the New Territories, and from the surrounding waters fleets of junks net every variety of fish, a supply which more than suffices for the Colony's needs. Mining is, as yet, in its infancy. Considerable deposits of wolframite, manganese, granite and kaolin are to be found in the hills of the New Territories, and prospecting and mining for these are encouraged.
Hong Kong has developed naturally in strategic and military importance as the Empire extended towards the East. To-day the Colony is the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, China Station, and of the General Officer Commanding British Troops in China. The Royal Air Force has a station at Kai Tak, sharing a landing ground with the civil authorities. The constantly shifting personnel of the armed forces, together with the flow of tourist traffic and the itinerant habits of the boat-people and poorer classes generally, make the permanent population of the Colony relatively few. To these few however, and to her visitors, Hong Kong now offers amenities which cannot be equalled in the tropics. The present low fixed rate of the dollar and the cheapness of labour bring living expenses to an encouragingly
3
of the East India Company, whose monopoly expired in 1831, and the unsuccessful official missions, were united in 1834 by the arrival of Lord Napier in Canton as His Majesty's Chief Superintendent of Trade.
Lord Napier's efforts at improving relations with the Chinese authorities for the benefit of British trade resulted in conspicuous failure and he died in Macao in October, 1834. Captain Elliot R.N. succeeded him as Chief Superintendent and for five years negotiations were intermittently continued while the position of the British merchants became more unbearable. The ultimate result of this protracted period of undeclared hostilities was the withdrawal of British merchant ships to Hong Kong Bay, a blockade of the Canton River in 1840 and the peaceful occupation of Hong Kong Island in January, 1841.
The cession of the island to Great Britain was confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking in August, 1842. The history of the Colony thereafter is one of uninter- rupted peaceful development. The Convention of Peking of 1860 added the Kowloon peninsula and Stonecutters' Island to the Colony, and under a further Convention of Peking signed in 1898, the area known as the New Territories, including Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, was leased to Great Britain for a period of ninety-nine years.
Nearly a century has passed since the bare unproductive hills were first occupied and the gangs of law-breakers evicted from their shelter. Afforestation, extensive reclamation of the foreshore, cultivation of the lower slopes, and a network of motor roads cut into the hills have combined with the steady growth of the city itself to present to the ocean-going ships which lie in Hong Kong waters to-day a very different picture from that which met the first merchantmen who watered off the south-west coast of the island. Sanitation, anti-malarial work, and public health administration have removed all evidence of the 'plague spot' which the new Colony was thought to be. The administration of the Colony usually has been serene and untroubled. One of the world's great harbours has been developed out of the enclosed waters between Lyemoon and Green Island. The freedom of the port has been maintained and no restrictions are placed on the entrance or egress of the Chinese population. This policy has preserved for the Colony the rôle which it was intended to fulfil in 1841 that of an entrepôt for the trade and labour of the southern provinces. It has had the effect too of establishing Hong Kong as an impartial refuge, both for persons and capital, during the internecine struggles which followed the inauguration of the Chinese Republic in 1911, and through the more recent misfortunes of the Chinese people. A railway which passes through the centre of China and a road from Canton debouch upon the line of wharves where the world's shipping collects. Five airlines, from China, Europe and America, terminate in the airport. Ship-building yards on the eastern side of the harbour have laid down keels for ships of 11,000 tons, and the docks can accommodate the largest of the Pacific liners. Small industries have sprung up and flourished in the east of the island and in Kowloon. Cement, rope, glass, cigarettes, cigars, matches, paper, lard, electric torches and batteries, rubber-shoes and piece-goods are now exported widely. Market-produce, cereals, poultry and live-stock are brought in daily from the New Territories, and from the surrounding waters fleets of junks net every variety of fish, a supply which more than suffices for the Colony's needs. Mining is, as yet, in its infancy. Considerable deposits of wolframite, manganese, granite and kaolin are to be found in the hills of the New Territories, and prospecting and mining for these are encouraged.
Hong Kong has developed naturally in strategic and military importance as the Empire extended towards the East. To-day the Colony is the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, China Station, and of the General Officer Commanding British Troops in China. The Royal Air Force has a station at Kai Tak, sharing a land- ing ground with the civil authorities. The constantly shifting personnel of the armed forces, together with the flow of tourist traffic and the itinerant habits of the boat-people and poorer classes generally, make the permanent population of the Colony relatively few. To these few however, and to her visitors, Hong Kong now offers amenities which cannot be equalled in the tropics. The present low fixed rate of the dollar and the cheapness of labour bring living expenses to an encouragingly
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