Directory_and_Chronicle_1908 — Page 1098

HONGKONG

979

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 1906 including land sales ($315,773), was 87,035,011, and the ordinary expenditure was 85,328,820. On exdraordinary public works a sum of $1,503,789 was expended. The Colony has a small public debt. A loan of £200,000 was 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 at the end of 1906 stood at £341,800, repayment of which is provided for by a sinking fund, which at the end of 1906 had £54,523 16s. 8d. to credit. In 1906 the Government raised a loan of £1,100,000 in London at an average price of £99 1s. per cent., bearing interest at the rate of 3 per cent. This money was lent by

34 the Government to the Viceroy of Wuchang for the purpose of redeeming the Canton- Hankow railway concession from the various persons who had acquired interests in it from the original American concessionaires. The total cost of the loan including expenses of issue, was £1,143,933. The loan is repayable in ten annual instalments. Interest at the rate of 45 per cent. is payable on it, and the opium revenue of Hupeh, Hunan and Kwangtung is pledged as security.

The rateable value of the city of Victoria for 1907-8 is $8,892,205 (showing a decrease of 3.42 per cent. on the rateable value of the previous year), while for the whole Colony the assessment is $10,654,338 as compared with $10,930,273 in the previous year, showing a total decrease of 2.52 per cent.

DESCRIPTION

The island of Hongkong is about 11 miles long and from 2 to 5 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 Tytain 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 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.

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