(C.A.A. 1).
No.
104
CIVIL AFFAIRS ADMINISTRATION,
Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank Building,
QUARTERLY REVIEW.
Hong Kong.
!
GENERAL.
1.
From a broad view the Colony at last presents a normal appearance. The streets are clean and crowded, empty or shuttered shops are a rarity, trams, buses and ferry services are running to schedule and the harbour has more shipping to show than appeared in the pre-war picture.
2.
It needs no critical observer, however, to perceive the universal signs of malnutrition among the crowds, and the effects of looting and neglect behind and away from the main thoroughfares. Shops are busy, but with the sale of slim stocks of hoarded or stolen pre-war goods, and transportation is overcrowded and inadequate. All but a few of the ships at anchor are men of war.
3.
A still closer examination might perhaps reveal the confusing cross currents of recrimination and denunciation which disturb the Occupation stories of suffering and privation. Loyalties are discounted and disloyalties excused on the shifting grounds of expediency. White is as uncommon as black, and in a world of grey men, outstanding renegades and trustworthy leaders for the future are equally difficult to discover.
4.
This situation is the inevitable legacy of a dark period of oppression and repression. For four years the Colony has been turned in upon itself and a kind of mental asphyxia has resulted. In the psychological no less than the economic sphere, rehabilitation depends in the first place upon the resumption of free intercourse with the outside world. Granted this, other requirements follow. The Colony's main asset is perhaps the resilience and resourcefulness of its inhabitants. Prejudiced as they are by the sufferings and hatreds of the past, their true interest is nevertheless centred firmly in the future. Their impatient optimism is a constant reminder to the Administration that though the progress achieved hitherto may appear satisfactory from the official point of view, it is no more than the community as a whole has expected.
On 23rd November, the Colony was declared open to normal trading and on 5th December, the C.-in-C. delegated full powers to the C.C.A.0. Though these two events were interpreted by the Public as constituting greater advances towards normal conditions than was in fact justified, the reactions they produced at least served to confirm that the high hopes of many sections of the Community are centred in the return to full Civil Government now commonly if irrationally regarded as a panacea for most of the economic ills stemming in reality from supply difficulties. The public is not unaware that the Administration has thus far been surprisingly fortunate in the avoidance of expected epidemics and labour unrest, that a sense of law and order has now been regained and that the first tremors of political nervous-
There is a wide- ness and apprehension have subsided. spread feeling that the Administration should take full
5.
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