681595-1881-Legislative-Council — Page 2

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THE HONGKONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 11TH JUNE, 1881\

紛

for which it was established; they will enable you

also to determine whether it is true, what you have all heard said so often (out of Hongkong,

or by unobservant residents in it), namely, that there are no trades and manufactures whatever

in this colony; and these returns will also enable us to decide a question much discussed here now,

-whether the recent transactions in land, the important sales and transfers of land, that have taken place of late, are speculative, or whether

they are really bona fide the result of healthy commercial progress, and a matter of necessity.

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 land-

ed property 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 transac- tions, 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 cor- roborates 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 Government, $17,705; total value of properties bought by foreigners from foreigners, $216,750; total value of proper- ties 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 com- mercial purposes, to the Chinese community since January last year, is undoubtedly an event of great impor tance. Is it speculative, or is it justi-

fied 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, Portu- guese, 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 from the United Kingdom, there has been a decrease from 342 to 336, there has been an increase in the number of women and of boys and girls. So, too, with the Portuguese;

there is a 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

自然由不得不然所致者乎

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