HONG KONG, 1905.
23
future. As regards other industrial undertakings, though there was no heavy fall, only in a few unimportant instances was there any advance on the value of shares at the end of the preceding year.
The maintenance of existing and the creation of new industrial undertakings are becoming a matter of very great importance to the Colony, threatened as it is by serious competition from other places in some of its principal sources of wealth in the past. A satisfactory feature of the year was, therefore, the initiation of arrangements to start one such new enterprise in the New Territories; a flour mill on a large scale is in course of construction at a favourable site in Junk Bay, and is to be combined with an extensive farm for the rearing of pigs on the refuse material. Serious attempts to prospect for metals in those Territories were also put in hand during the year. If these prove the existence of minerals in quantities that will pay for their extraction, the future development of the Territories will be greatly assisted.
Various projects that have been mooted for the construction of railways to ports on the mainland of South China have maintained and enhanced the desire of Hong Kong to have as soon as possible a trunk line through that country with a terminus in the Colony.
On the 6th October, with the approval of His Majesty's Government and under sanction of an Imperial decree, the Government of Hong Kong lent and the Viceroy of the Hu Kuang Provinces borrowed a sum of £1,100,000, repayable in ten annual instalments. The security for the loan was the opium revenue of Hupei, Hunan, and Kwangtung, and the interest on it 4 per cent. payable half-yearly. The money was advanced to Hong Kong by the Crown Agents at Bank rate—then 4 per cent.—and on being paid over to the Chinese Ambassador at Washington, was at once utilised to redeem the Canton-Hankow railway concession from the various persons who had acquired interests in it from the original concessionaires. With the object of raising a loan to repay the Crown Agents' advance, and at the same time to provide funds for the British section of the Canton-Kowloon railway, and to meet other railway needs that might arise, an Ordinance (No. 11 of 1905) was passed on the 16th October to empower the Governor to raise, as occasion required, loans not exceeding two million pounds in all. No loan was however raised before the end of the year.
Throughout the year attempts were being made in conjunction with His Majesty's Minister at Peking to get the Chinese authorities, and particularly the Viceroy of the Liang Kuang Provinces, to negotiate arrangements for the construction and subsequent working of the Chinese section of the proposed Canton-Kowloon railway on the basis of Loan and Joint
47
*
1904-1919
HONG KONG, 1905.
23
future. As regards other industrial undertakings, though there was no heavy fall, only in a few unimportant instances was there any advance on the value of shares at the end of the preceding year.
The maintenance of existing and the creation of new industrial undertakings are becoming a matter of very great importance to the Colony, threatened as it is by serious com- petition from other places in some if its principal sources of wealth in the past. A satisfactory feature of the year was, therefore, the initiation of arrangements to start one such new 'enterprise in the New Territories; a flour mill on a large scale 'is in course of construction at a favourable site in Junk Bay, and is to be combined with an extensive farm for the rearing of pigs on the refuse material. Serious attempts to prospect for metals in those Territories were also put in hand during the year. If these prove the existence of minerals in quantities that will pay for their extraction, the future development of the Territories will be greatly assisted.
Various projects that have been mooted for the construction
· of railways to ports on the mainland of South China have main- tained and enhanced the desire of Hong Kong to have as soon as possible a trunk line through that country with a terminus in the Colony.
On the 6th October, with the approval of His Majesty's "Government and under sanction of an Imperial decree, the
·Government of Hong Kong lent and the Viceroy of the Hu Kuang Provinces borrowed a sum of £1,100,000, repayable in ten annual instalments. The security for the loan was the opium revenue of Hupei, Hunan, and Kwangtung, and the interest on it 4 per cent. payable half-yearly. The money was advanced to Hong Kong by the Crown Agents at Bank rate-then 4 per cent.-and on being paid over to the Chinese Ambassador at Washington, was at once utilised to redeem the Canton-Hankow railway concession from the various per- sons who had acquired interests in it from the original con-
· cessionaires. With the object of raising a loan to repay the Crown Agents' advance, and at the same time to provide funds -for the British section of the Canton-Kowloon railway, and to meet other railway needs that might arise, an Ordinance (No. 11 of 1905) was passed on the 16th October to empower the Governor to raise, as occasion required, loans not exceeding two million pounds in all. No loan was however raised before the end of the year.
Throughout the year attempts were being made in conjunc- tion with His Majesty's Minister at Peking to get the Chinese authorities, and particularly the Viceroy of the Liang Kuang Provinces, to negotiate arrangements for the construction and subsequent working of the Chinese" section of the proposed Canton-Kowloon railway on the basis of Loan and, Joint
47
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