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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 4т JUNE, 1881.
With respect to the latter point, I am placing upon the table a return which has been prepared in the Survey Department in consequence of a minute of mine, in which I directed attention to the publication in the Daily Press of the 11th May, 1881, of a statement of transactions in landed proper- ty in Hongkong, and called upon the proper officers to have that return checked and verified. Accordingly, that return, which, no doubt, you have all seen, was transmitted to the Acting Surveyor- General. He has now furnished us with an authentic statement of the transactions, from the Land Office books, that have taken place in the transfer and sale of property from the first of January last year to the 11th of May this year. To be brief, I think, on the whole, he corroborates what appeared in the Daily Press; and the summary he gives at the end is to this effect:-Total value of properties bought by Chinese from foreigners, $1,710,036; total value of properties bought by Chinese from the Govern- ment, $17,705; total value of properties bought by foreigners from foreigners, $216,750; total value of properties bought by foreigners from the Government, $5,060; total value of properties bought by foreigners from Chinese, $16,450.
Now, this large item of $1,710,000 on the transfer of property, almost entirely for commercial purposes, to the Chinese community since January last year, is undoubtedly an event of great impor- tance. Is it speculative, or is it justified by the returns I am now laying on the table? In the first place, what do we learn from the census returns of the Registrar-General? We find that the population has risen from 139,144 in 1876 to 160,402 in 1881, showing, in four years and four months, an increase of 21,258, and of this increase the Chinese population account for 20,532. The Registrar-General adds, that the European and American community is larger by 273; that the increase is among the British, Portuguese, Germans and Italians, and is that of women and children; that the male adult population of Europeans and Americans has decreased. This fact is of interest, because, whilst, taking the male adult British subjects, there has been a very slight decrease from 342 to 336, there has been So, too, with the Portuguese; there is a an increase in the number of women and of boys and girls. falling off from 418 adult males in 1876 to 384 at present, but an increase in the women and children. So, too, with the Germans; there is a falling off in the adult German population, and in the American population, and in the French population, but in each case there is an increase in the number of women and children. This fact, I say, is of interest, because the tropical Colony where European children flourish cannot be very unhealthy. The vitality of a foreign child is a delicate test of climate, and I believe we can point to this particular item in the census returns as affording some indication that Hongkong is growing more healthy-(Hear, hear). And now, proceeding to the question of the 20,000 additional Chinese, we have to consider this:--Has the increase in the various mercantile occu- pations of the Chinese been such as to justify the remarkable transfer of landed property I have referred to? The census returns furnish us with an opportunity of testing how far in the harbour of Victoria itself the means we have of commercial movement--that is, the transference of goods from steamer to steamer, from steamer to shore, and vice versa-how far that has been facilitated since the year 176. From the returns, I find that that movement is conducted by steam launches, cargo boats, and sampans. The steam launches have increased from 8 in 1876 to 37 in 1881, the cargo boats from 494 to 656, and the sampans from 1,357 to 2,088. So far for the machinery that we have in our harbour for con- ducting the commercial movement of the Colony; it. has substantially increased. The returns I am laying before you are identical in form with the returns prepared in the time of Sir ARTHUR KENNEDY, and probably his predecessors, and amongst these returns there is one which answers the question I have been asking, and that is a return of the occupations of the Chinese adult male inhabitants of the Colony. On analysing that return, I find that the following are the changes that have taken place since the last census with respect to Chinese merchants and other Chinese directly concerned in the trade and commerce of the Colony.
The Chinese Trading hongs, that is, the Nam-pak hongs and other wealthy merchants who now Chinese traders have send the manufactures of England into China,-have increased from 215 to 395. increased from 287 to 2,377; Chinese brokers, from 142 to 455. Taking the Chinese engaged in dealing in money; the Shroff's have increased from 40 to 208; the Teachers of shroffing have increased from 9 to 14; the Bullion dealers, who do not appear in any former census, are now returned at 34; the Money Changers, 111 in 1876, still remain at 111, but in 1876 there were no Chinese Bankers returned, and now we have in this census 55 Chinese Bankers. The piece-goods dealers have increased This is of interest, not merely to from 78 in 1876 to 109, and cotton and yarn dealers from 38 to 58. Manchester, Bradford or Leeds: these Chinese merchants of Hongkong are now facilitating an Indian trade with China, healthier, and with a safer future, than the trade in that drug which a few years ago was the only considerable commercial link between British India and China. Since 1877, the quantity of Bombay yarn received in Hongkong has steadily risen from 21,000 bales to 61,000. The increase in the value of this trade from $1,706,913 in 1877 to $5,251,246 in 1880, has been coincident with an increase in our imports of raw cotton from Bengal and Rangoon from 33,000 bales in 1877 to 86,000 In 1880, we imported 87,747 chests, in 1880. Our opium trade shows no such tendency to increase. as against 88,428 in 1877. Mr. F. D. SASSOON tells me that the value of our total trade with India last year was $67,772,937, the value of the opium being $58,248,235. Though the trade in other goods than opium is but one-sixth of the total Indian trade, yet it is so rapidly developing, that I look forward with confidence to the time when it will outstrip, and, perhaps, enable the Indian Government to curtail, the trade in opium. Tea merchants have increased from 26 to 51, rice dealers from 95 to 128,
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