CO129-369 - Acting Governor May Governor Sir Lugard - 1910 [10-11] — Page 486

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commerce involving so large a capital. He added that a

financial crisis had been narrowly averted and still

threatened the Colony I may remind you that this Colony

has for some years past been suffering from a very

severe trade depression, aggravated by depreciation of

house property due to Plague, and by the falling value of

silver. From this it was gradually emerging towards the

end of last year, when it has again been plunged into

severe difficulties by the financial débâcle in con-

-nection with rubber at Shanghai, a port with which Hong-

-kong is very intimately connected in commerce and

banking. It is therefore a moment at which the commercial

houses are least able to bear a sovere financial strain.

Tension in the commercial prosperity of the Colony is of

course reflected in the Revenue, and there is no necessity

for me to remind you of the difficulties I have had to

encounter in this regard since I came to the Colony. Losses

by exchange, by the redundancy of an alien subsidiary

coinage, and by the measures taken for the suppression of

Opium Divans, have coincided with the very heavy cost of an

unremunerative railway undertaking and have involved new

and heavy taxation.

On the other hand the illegal

taxes