HONGKONG
405-
The Government is administered by a Governor, aided by an Executive Council of five officials and two unofficials. The Legislative Council is presided over by the Governor, and is composed of the Officer Commanding the Troops, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General, the Treasurer, the Registrar-General, the Director of Public Works, the Harbour Master, the Captain Superintendent of Police, and six unofficial members, one of whom is elected by the Chamber of Commerce and another by the Justices of the Peace. The other four, two of whom are Chinese, but British subjects, are appointed by the Government.
FINANCES
The revenue for 1903 was $5,238,857, being an increase of $337,784 on the revenue .of the previous year, and the ordinary expenditure was $4,746,838. The revenue expected in 1904 was $6,763,391, the remarkable increase being due mainly to a new lease of the opium monopoly which brought to the Treasury the sum of $1,975,000 as compared with $750,000 per annum under the old lease. The Colony has a small public debt, a loan of £200,000 having been contracted in 1886. Another loan of £200,000 was contracted in 1893, and in 1894 the unredeemed balance of the first loan was converted from 4 per cent. debentures into 3 inscribed stock, thus bringing it into uniformity with the loan raised in 1893. The public debt now stands at £341,800, repayment of which is provided for by a sinking fund, which has £26,693 14s. 2d. to credit.
The annual rateable value of the city of Victoria for 1904-5 is $8,342,470, while for the whole Colony the assessment is $9,890,521, which represents an increase of 13-03 per cent. on the rateable value of the previous year.
DESCRIPTION
The island of Hongkong is about 11 miles long and from 2 to 3 miles broad; its circum- ference is about 27 miles. It consists of a broken ridge of lofty hills, with few valleys of any extent and scarcely any ground available for cultivation. The only valleys worthy of the name are those of Wong-nai Chung and Little Hongkong, both of which are remark- ably beautiful and well wooded, being in fact the only parts where any considerable arborescent vegetation was formerly to be found. The island is well watered by numerous streams, many of which are perennial. The city of Victoria and suburbs are supplied with water from the Pokfolum, Tytam, and Wong-nai Chung reservoirs. The first-named, constructed in 1866-69, has a storage capacity of sixty-eight million gallons, while the Tytam reservoir, constructed in 1883-88, and extended in 1896, has an area of about 29 acres and a storage capacity of about three hundred and ninety million gallons. From the Tytam reservoir the water is conveyed into town by means of a tunnel a mile and one-third in length and a conduit along the hillside some 400 feet above the sea level and nearly four miles in length, on which a fine road-called the Bowen Road-has been formed, which commands the most charming views of the city and the eastern district, and is a favourite resort of pedestrians. In many parts the conduit is carried over the ravines and rocks by ornamental stone bridges, one of which, above Wanchai, has twenty-three arches. The Wong-nai Chung reservoir, completed in 1899, has a capacity of twenty-seven million gallons. A bye- wash reservoir of about thirty million gallons capacity, situated immediately below the overflow of the Tytam reservoir, was completed in 1903, and a scheme is in hand for the construction of a dam at Tytam Tuk to impound 194 million gallons.
The natural productions of the Colony are few and unimportant. There is little land suitable for tillage, and nothing is grown but a little rice and some vegetables near the outlying villages. There are large granite quarries, both on the island and in Kowloon, and there is a small export of this stone. A bed of fire clay exists at Deep- Water Bay, and bricks and earthenware pipes are manufactured from it. The forests now growing up and in course of being planted may one day become a source of revenue, when sufficiently extensive, from the periodical thinnings.
The approaches to the port are fairly well lighted. A lighthouse on Green Island lights the western entrance of the harbour, the light being a fixed dioptric one of the fourth order, visible at a distance of fourteen miles. It is proposed to replace this light by the one now at Cape D'Aguilar which has been idle for nearly eight years. The eastern approach is indicated by a group flashing dioptric light of the first order, visible at a distance of twenty-two miles, erected on Waglan Island. while a smaller light on Cape Collinson assists navigators to make the Ly-ee-mùn Pass. A lighthouse on Gap Rock, about thirty miles to the south, was completed and first displayed its beacon on the 1st April, 1892; it is connected with the port by a cable, and the approach of vessels is signalled from it to the Post Office.
Original from UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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