XN000022-1975-11-26 — Page 14

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conception, birth and growth to maturity of this remarkable place have been dominated by its ability to provide a safe haven for the trading vessels of

the East.

You will recall that in the last century the British merchants

who maintained factories in Canton and residences in Macau, became restive

at the conditions under which they were obliged to operate and asked the

British Government to try to obtain a base from which they could trade with greater freedom. After some hesitation, the Government complied and the choice fell upon the bare, infertile, volcanic Islet of Hong Kong. A visit

to present day Lantao will give you an accurate picture of what Hong Kong must have looked like in 1840. There you will find a heavily indented coast rising steeply to an irregular sky-line. At sea level, lies a thin

strip of land where cultivation is possible, but the rest is hillside, tree-

less, barren and strewn with blocks of naked rock.

The success of Hong Kong as a trading post was founded upon its

security as an anchorage; upon its detachment from the political upheavals

which were shaking Eastern asia; upon the excellence of its shipping and

commercial facilities and upon a successful blending of the qualities of

those two superb trading races the Chinese and the British,

The polyglot community which has emerged, constantly revivified and

transformed by fresh migration, has wrought in a cheerless Island a trans-

formation without parallel. What was a quiet anchorage, a haven for pirates

and the home of a few thousand poor villagers, has become a remarkable

Twentieth Century monument to the industry and ingenuity of man.

In the past quarter of a century we have transformed ourselves

from a transhipment port into one of the main manufacturing centres of the

world. But, wherever you look, you are constantly reminded that our very

existence depends upon the sea and that shipping plays a dominant role in the

lives of those who live in Hong Kong.

/CONCLUSION