CO129-506-4 Public Works Loan Ordinance- 1927 23-9-1927 - 28-2-1928 — Page 28

HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

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the second being that 1900 was the Boxer year and that useful lessons may be drawn from a comparison of conditions in the Colony then and now, and the third being that at the commencement of this period our 1893 loan had been fully expended and that since then the Colony's development has been financed almost entirely from annual revenue.

Thirty years ago, on the 1st January, 1897, the Colony's surplus balances amounted to $548,964. The revenue of the Colony collected during 1897 was $2,686,914 and the expenditure was $2,641,409. The total civil population of the Colony in that year was estimated to be 243,565 souls; the total shipping engaged in foreign trade entered and cleared at Hong Kong, excluding junks, was 12,124,599 tons and of this total 67 per cent. was British. It is interesting to place in immediate juxta-position the figures for last year. On the 1st January, 1926, the Colony's surplus balances amounted to $8,113,482. The revenue collected during 1926 was $21,131,581 and the expenditure was $23,524,715. The total civil population of the Colony was estimated to be 874,420 souls; the total, shipping engaged in foreign trade entered and cleared at Hong Kong, excluding junks was 26,983,190 tons and of this total 54 per cent. was British. Therefore, during these thirty years the Colony's revenue increased more than eight-fold, its population was more than trebled, and its shipping engaged in foreign trade, exclusive of junks, was more than doubled. This is a wonderful record and the remarkable continuity of the progress made is shown in a sessional paper which has to-day been laid on the table.

The revenue increased steadily from $2,686,914 in 1897 to $7,035,011 in 1906. Then there was a brief set-back, for the revenue in 1907 was only $6,602,280 and in 1908 it fell to $6,104,207. Thence- forward the increase was again continuous until in 1918 the revenue collected was $18,665,248. There followed another set-back, the revenue for 1919 being $16,524,974, for 1920 being $14,689,671 and for 1921 being $17,728,131. Thereafter the revenue suddenly leaped up again, reaching the Colony's record, namely $24,783,762, in 1923. Since then there has been another decline; but even so the revenue collected last year was $21,131,581, appreciably more than in any year of the Colony's history prior to 1922.

The Council will see that during the thirty years under review there has thrice been a set-back in the steady expansion of the colonial revenue, the first in 1907-8, the second in 1919-21, while the third is being experienced at the present time. On the first of these occasions the trouble was due to trade depression consequent on over-specula- tion in 1904, followed in 1905 by the boycott of American goods in China as a protest against the United States' exclusion law. Imports to, and exports from, China fell off. Moreover, the reduction of the British fleet in China, which took place at this time, adversely affected Hong Kong in many ways, especially by a decrease in the

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