CO129-618-7 Port Adminstation Inquiry Committee- report and minutes of meetings 1-1-1945 - 31-12-1946 — Page 141

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HONG KONG, 24th February, 1941.

141

To

His Excellency Sir Geoffry A. S. Northcote, K.O.M.G.,

Governor,

Hong Kong:

Your Excellency,

1. In accordance with your invitation to me to visit Hong Kong for the purpose of investigating the Port facilities, etc., there, and making recommendations for the future control and development of the Port, I beg to report that I arrived in the Colony un the 10th January, 1941.

2.

I was accompanied by Mr. Duncan Kennedy, M. Inst. C.E., who was appointed by you to advise me on any engineering matters that might arise in the course of the Inquiry.

3. The exact terms of reference given to me were:

4.

"To investigate the whole question of Harbour facilities,

organization and administration at Hong Kong, having regard to the existing system of pier leases which are due to expire in ten years' time; and, in the light of physical, economic and political conditions, to make recommendations for measures by which the Port could in future be developed and controlled to the best advantage of all persons and interests dependent on its services.

During the period of my stay in Hong Kong, with Mr. Kennedy I carefully inspected the whole of the Port and listened to representa- tions from the various interests connected with its trade, apart from receiving a considerable amount of information from Government officials.

5. I think it desirable, in order that the conclusions to which I have arrived may be the better understood, that I should first of all set out, as briefly s possible, the nature of the problem as it presented itself to me.

6.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.

T

The historical background of the Port is not an extensive one. It appears that, in the third decade of the last century, the island now known as Hong Kong was a place of small consequence inhabited by a few fishermen, stonecutters and farmers, and it was a notorious hiding place for smugglers and pirates. In 1841 it was taken by British foroes partly as a reprisal for the bad treatment of British merchants in Canton and partly to provide a base from which trading might be carried on with merchants in South China. The cession of the island to Great Britain was confirmed by the Treaty of Nanking in August, 1842.

7. The Convention of Peking in 1860 added the Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island to the Colony, while, under a further convention of 1898, the area known as the New Territories, including Mirs Bay and Deep Bay, was leased to Great Britain for a period of 99 years.

8.

GOVERNMENT IN RELATION TO THE HARBOUR. The ment of the

**ly

Colony is administered by a Governor gas derartments degling respet

added by an Executive busy and a Legislative pancil, there being vartus with such matters as find, the administration tice, public hear publib work, education, police and so on.