to organize a stoppage of supplies. Retailers were threatened that they would receive no more supplies from China if they refused to shut their shops when the call was made.
88. Supplies from China did stop, and nothing came in by sea, rail or road during the best part of these four days; but most shops did not close and stocks were available for sale in a majority of the shops and stalls during this period. Increased supplies of pigs, cattle, vege- tables, chickens and eggs from New Territories farms helped to ease the shortage and marine fish continued to be available. There were some shortages, with consequent increases in price, but the publicity given to the stoppage had alerted the public and there was no rush to buy scarce supplies. The poorest members of the community were inevitably those worst affected.
89. Supplies from China were resumed on 2nd July and the markets quickly returned almost to normal. To keep the public informed of the position, reports of fresh food supplies arriving from China were published daily. There were rumours that there would be more stop- pages of supplies and a number of attempts, almost entirely unsuccess- ful, were made to incite food shops and stalls to close.
90. In July Chinese supplies to Hong Kong again began to diminish. It quickly became apparent that this disruption was not deliberate but was a direct result of unsettled conditions in China brought about by the cultural revolution which had effected both processing plants and transportation. As can be seen from the table at Appendix II, the transport coming to Hong Kong, already affected by the June stoppage, diminished dramatically during July, August and September. By the end of the year it had still by no means returned to 1966 standards.
91. The commodities most seriously affected were fresh pork, fresh beef, fresh vegetables and eggs; and the scarcity of these items caused prices for other commodities to rise as the pattern of demand changed. People accepted the situation with fortitude and patience and there was no evidence of panic buying as there had been in June. The situation deteriorated seriously throughout August and did not begin to improve until the middle of September; during the month of August the number of pigs imported from China fell to 74,359 against a monthly average for the previous year of 157,711; head of cattle to 1,114 against an average of 9,874; and vegetables to 13,241 tons against an average of 21,726. (Details are recorded in Appendix III.) Happily, despite all
28
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.