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The expenditure on the Volunteers, which is entirely borne by the Colony, was $45,554 compared with $45,253 in 1907.
XII-GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
year
The assessment made in July, 1907, for the year 1907-1908 was adopted for the 1908-1909, the difference in rateable value being the result of interim-assessments and appeals. The rateable value of the whole Colony increased by 0.93%. In the City of Victoria, the Hill District, Shaukiwan, the Hongkong Villages, Mongkoktsui and th)) Kowloon Villages there was an increase ranging from 0.84% to 2.92%. In Kowloon Point and Yanmati there was a decrease of 121% and 1:45% respectively. New Kow- loon shewed an increase of 77%. Notices of appeal were given against the assessments of 249 tenements with an aggregate rateable value of $152,180. The Court ordered reductions amounting to $36,195.
Throughout the year negotiations were in progress between this Government and the Chinese Authorities both at Canton and at Peking on the subject of the loss and incon- venience caused by the depreciation of the Colony's subsidiary currency owing to the over- issue of small coins by the Mint in Canton, which circulate freely in the Colony at a heavy discount and cause the legal (subsidiary) currency to fall to a nearly corresponding discount. This Government adopted the expedient of withdrawing from circulation $780,000 of subsidiary silver coin and $30,000 of bronze coin. These coins were shipped to London where they were melted down and sold as bullion for £60,501 1s. 4d. and £1,190 1s. Od. respectively. Up to the close of the year the negotiations with the Chinese Government had not produced any satisfactory result. The average annual loss to Revenue from this source as calculated for the last 3 years has been $184,204, including the loss by demonetization of unissued stocks. The average loss on the same period, which would have been incurred by payment of discount instead of demonetization, was $26,777.
The rate of exchange fell from over 2/- to the dollar at the end of 1907 to an average throughout the year of 1/96. This involved considerable loss to Government and disor- ganised the budget which had been calculated on a basis of 2/- for salaries and 2/1 for other
items.
Piracy in the Canton Delta was much less rife than it has been during recent years, Mr. R. Mansfield, Consul General at Canton, handed over charge of the Consulate to Mr. II. H. Fox on the 1st June.
For some years past the disgraceful custom of abandoning corpses in the streets, in waste places, or in the Harbour had been rife, and all efforts to put a stop to the practice had proved effective. During the year an attempt was made to enliste co-operation of Suspicions that the the leading inese in the suppression of this revolting custom, practice was in part the result of infanticide have been disproved It is due to fear of disinfection for disease. The decision that infant corpses could be brought to the dispensaries, and no questions muld be asked, and $1 reward given, wa the first effective step. In February, 1908, there was a meeting at the Tung Wa, and addressed representatives of the Chinese Community at Government House. Street Committees were appointed, and the work was entrusted to the Directors of the Tung Wa Hospital, who found funds, and took over the dispensaries. A dispensar committee was formed ad met at the Tung Wa. The actual work was however done by the residents and Vice Presidents of three Sub-Committees with the help of the district watch. Three learers were appointed, and every house supplied with handbills. Each case was fully investigated. Detectives were employed, photographs (except in the case of children take of the corpse, and rewards offered for identification. Government midwives informed the people of the decision that $1 reward would be given for every infant corpse brought to e dispensaries and that no questions would be asked. To obviate post-mortem exagations, entiates of the Hongkong College of Medicine were allowed to issue death cepficates in cases hey had attended, and the dispensary doctors sent corpses to the medical officers of the Tung a Hospital, who after enquiry reported cause of death. Post-morte examinations were he, however, on all unidentified corpses. members of the Street Committees visited houses and explained the policy of the Governinent to the Chinese. In 1907 the total number of corpses abandoned was 938. I
Adult 1908 total was (in spite of plague) only 64 the decrease being continuous. corpses, which have formerly been 50 per cent. of the oral number, practically ceased to be
bandoned. The number of male and female bodies abandoned was about equal.
The
Mr. H. N. Mody generously offered to present the Colony with the buildings necessary to start a University. His original offer was to give a sum of $150,000 for this purpose
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15
and a further sum of $30,000 towards endowment. Plans of the necessary buildings were prepared and, as the Director of Public Works estimated that the buildings proposed would not cost less than $290,000, Mr. Mody undertook to provide them in accordance with the the plans which he had approved, no matter what the cost might be, stipulating however that he should use on the buildings the $30,000 originally given for endowment, if it should be required. It is intended that the proposed Hongkong University shall have at the outset two faculties, viz., Medicine and Engineering, and that the existing College of Medicine, the Technical Institute, and the local branch of the Sanitary Institute shall be incorporated in it. It is hoped that an Arts Course may be added. A Committee has been formed, with myself as Chairman, to promote the un lertaking.
On the 6th May, a telegram was received from Your Lordship to the effect that His Majesty's Government had decided "that steps must be taken to close opium dens in Hongkong, as they recognise it is essential in dealing with the opium question in Hongkong we must act up to the standard set by the Chinese Government ". As the result of this telegram the opium question was debated in the Legislative Council on several occasions during the year, and careful investigations were made by the Government. It had not, how- ever, been decided by the end of the year what steps should be taken in the matter, as the result of the International Opium Commission to be held in Shanghai was awaited.
In the month of June there were very serious flools in the valleys of the West and North Rivers, causing distress and famine in many districts of the Kungtung and Kuangsi provinces: and on the 2n-1 of July the Legislative Council unanimously adopted a resolution conveying the deep sympathy of the Colony to the Governor General of the provinces concerned, and authorizing the payment of a sum of $30,000 from the General Revenue as a donation for the relief of the sufferers. A cheque for that amount was handed to the Governor General by H. B. M.'s Acting Consul General at Canton on the 15th July, and trans- mitted by His Excellency to the Charitable Guilds to whom the distribution of organized relief was cutrusted. In addition to this donation, there was collected by the Tung Wa Hospital the sums of $91,528 locally and $371,069 from abroad: while à Chinese bazaar held in the Colony in aid of the Flood Relief Fund realized $81,690. The bazaar was interesting as being the first of the kind organize and managed entirely by the Chinese community: Chinese ladies took charge of the stalls and both Chinese and European firms sent large quantities of goods, free of charge, to the bazaar committee for sale.
A sum of $1,000 was subscribed by the Colonists of Saigon for the relief of the distress caused by the severe typhoon of the 18th September, 1906, and it had originally been the intention of Sir M. Nathan to appropriate this sum for the erection of a memorial to the French Sailors of the French Destroyer Fronde who lost their lives in this harbour dur- ing that typhoon. As, however, the Committee of the Typhoon Relief Fund unanimously decided that it was not within their power to make any grant from the funds for this purpose nor to appropriate thereto the sum of $1,000 received fron Saigon, that money having gone into the general fund, a special subscription of $2,550) was raised to defray the cost of erecting an obelisk in Goscoigne Road, Kowloon, as a memorial to the French sailors in question. The ceremony of unveiling the memorial took place on the 14th of June and Mlle, Morel, daughter of the Lieut.-Governor of Tongking, unveiled the obelisk.
The proposal to construct a new Typhoon Refuge at Mongkoktsui, which had originally been made in 1904, and which, since the Typhoon of the 18th September, 1906, had been before the Typhoon Relief Committee, was favourably reported on by the Public Works Committee of the Legislative Council, who further recommended that pending its construction the accommodation in the Causeway Bay shelter should be increased by deepen- ing the area therein which dries at low water. It was estimated that the latter work would cost $70,000 and that a breakwater at Mongkoktsui to enclose 166 acres of sheltered water would cost $1,540,000. The matter was discussed in Legislative Council on the 6th August, and, with a view to financing the works, a resolution was passed by the Council on that day increasing the dues (a) for all river steamers entering the waters of the Colony to 5/6ths of a cent per ton register; and (b) for all other ships entering the waters of the Colony (excepting British and Foreign Ships of War) to 2 cents per ton register. It is hoped by this means to defray half the cost of the Mongkoktsui Breakwater, the other half being paid out of the Reserve Funds of the Colony and in the colonial estimates for 1909 passed by the Legislature on the 15th October a sum of $200,000 is provided for the Mongkoktsui typhoon shelter and a sum of $20,000 for deepening the shallow area of Causeway Bay to one foot below Ordnance Datum.
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In the meantime, on the night of the 27th to 28th July, the Colony was struck by another disastrous typhoon in which 26 privately owned buildings collapsed with a loss of
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