CO129-587-15 Excess Population Reduction Committee Report- Chinese Immigration Bill 1-10-1940 - 6-1-1941 — Page 51

Notes on the Report of the Excess Population Reduction

Hong Kong No. 4/1940),

Committee

Si

J

Section 5.

Population increase.

Statistics kept since 1938 show that, where circumstances in Hong Kong permit, the flow is outward and that the excess population shrinks.. The average daily increase over the period May 1938 to now is probably about 300, however.

Section 7. Methods of reducing immigration.

Section 8

(1) (3)

The method of entry-permit is preferable to that of quota, but (a) is it practicable? and (b) how would it affect the prosperity of an entrepôt-trade port, which is largely dependent upon temporarily resident labour and must import its food?

Practicability of entry-permit method.ii

Presumably approved persons other than presently existing residents are to be given entry-permits: otherwise Hong Kong would become a closed city. Presumably also such permits would be obtainable at certain places outside the Colony e.g. Singapore and Shanghai. Given these assumptions the following points arise:-

(i)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv) (v)

What are to be the criteria of admissibility? Where, outside the Coleny, will permits be issued? Will there be places of issue in China?

By whom will permits be issued?

Will the restriction affect all races or only Chinese? How can illegal entry be prevented, having regard to

the impossibility of watching the whole length of the Colony's borders, both land and sea?

Effect on the prosperity of the Colony.

Very careful consideration is necessary of the

effects of such restriction on

(a)

8

The trade and especially the great coast-wise trade - of the Colony:

The fresh-food supply of the Colony:

The large passenger traffic into and out of China for which Hong Kong is the junction.

My own conclusions regarding Section 8 (1)

-

(3) are:

It would be extremely costly to maintain such a scheme: The scheme would fail to exclude the very class whose exclusion is most desired;

(3)

A new form of petty crime would be created by its introduction:

(4)

The proposed restriction would prove gravely injurious to the Colony's trade and to the Colony's relations with external countries, especially China.

Section 8